METHODISM 



OLD AND NEW. 



WITH 



SKETCHES OF SOME OF ITS EARLY PREACHERS. 



BY 

J. E. PLANIGBK 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



" How thou did'st raise this people, lift their horn, 
And let them be no more the heathen's scorn." 



PHILADELPHIA 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 

1880. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 
J. R. FLANIGEN, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



j THE ubrary] 

OF CONGRESS! 



PKEFACE. 



Of course one must be "in the fashion" however 
thinly clad, and hence the author feels that a few words 
of introduction to the following pages will be appro- 
priate, although, perhaps, not strictly necessary, but 
they shall be brief. 

The chapters that are now placed within covers were 
begun at a period of leisure, and intended merely for 
publication as newspaper articles, and the early num- 
bers of the series having met with such favorable re- 
ception at the hands of the public as was scarcely ex- 
pected, they were continued to their present proportions, 
and have since been subjected to revision and some 
further enlargement. While the writer has not aspired 
to the dignity of an elaborate historian, he flatters him- 
self that he has produced such an interesting and run- 
ning synopsis of the history of Methodism as will 
prove entertaining as well as instructive to readers of 
all denominations, and he doubts not that the sketches 
of some of the old-time preachers whom he was fortu- 
nate enough to know, will serve as grateful memories 
to the old and pleasurable reading for the young. 

The circumstances and dates given in the work may 
be relied on as accurate, while such expression of opin- 

3 



4 



PREFACE. 



ion as has been presented is of course subject to the 
criticism of the reader. 

Methodism is beyond all question a wonderful or- 
ganization, and it may not be doubted that society is 
greatly indebted to it and its pioneers in America, as 
well as in other lands, not only for its humanizing in- 
fluences, but for the matchless power it has developed 
in bringing mankind to a better understanding and 
appreciation of his relations, duties, and responsibilities 
to the Supreme Architect of the Universe ; and deeply 
impressed by this great fact, the author of these pages 
has felt that even so modest a contribution to its litera- 
ture as is herewith presented will be acceptable to its 
votaries. 

J. R. F. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. — Origin op Methodism in England. 
Introductory Remarks — History of the Movement — Condition of 
Society in England — The Oxford Students — Wesley joins and 
leads them — The Wesleys visit America — George Whitefield 

takes to the Open Field . 9 

CHAPTER II. — Introduction of Methodism in America. 

Philadelphia the Birthplace of American Methodism — The Sail- 
Loft Society — Captain Webb, the Soldier Preacher — Pilmoor and 
John King — The Office of Bishop — Coke, Asbury, and Whatcoat 18 
CHAPTER III. — The Class-Meeting the Seed op the Church. 
Simplicity of the Original Movement — Mr. Wesley the Creature 
of Circumstances — The First Class in England — Wonderful 
Growth from a small beginning — M. Guizot's Theory applied — 
Old St. George's, its Origin and Improvement . . . .27 
CHAPTER IV.— The Old Churches. 

Superior Progress of Methodism in America — Reasons therefor — - 
The Pioneers of Local Methodism — Description of St. George's 
— Criticism on Watson's Annals — Methodism spreading — The 
Second Street Market-House a Preaching-Place — Old Ebenezer, 

1790— Preachers of the Olden Time 35 

CHAPTER V. — Progress of Methodism — Bethel Colored 
Church. 

From whence Methodism has drawn its Supplies — The Dutch- 
Irish Descendants of the Palatines — Mr. Wesley's Connection 
with the Moravians — He is converted at one of their Prayer- 
Meetings — Ezekiel Cooper — Criticism on Mr. Lednum's History 
of Bethel — History of Bethel — " Dickey Allen," the first Colored 

Bishop 44 

CHAPTER VI. — Divisions of Methodism — The Methodist Prot- 
estant Church — Free Methodists — Wesleyan Methodists. 
Comparison of Methodism Old and New — Prayer, Formal and In- 
formal — No Prayer in the Book for a Broken Leg — Origin of 
the Methodist Protestant Church — The Free Methodists — The 
Wesleyan Methodists an Anti-Slavery Church — Primitive Meth- 
odists 53 

CHAPTER VII. — Another Church for the Colored People — 
Mission Conferences established — Bishop Asbury and the 
Negro Punch. 

Zoar a Frontier Station — What to do with the Colored People — 
Adam Wallace in the Conference of 1864 — Conferences com- 
posed of Colored Preachers — Rev. Mr. Roberts's Trouble wfth 
Bethel Congregation — A Barricade erected against his Entrance 61 
CHAPTER VIII. — O'Kelley's Rebellion — Strawbridge's Inde- 
pendence. 

Rev. Mr. O'Kelley, his Character and Disposition — Ambition 
threatens* Destruction — The First Council, 1789 — The Demands 
of the Rebels — They are resisted and Secession follows — Dr. 
Coke alarmed — O'Kelley organizes the a Republican Method- 
ists" — Persecution of Episcopal Methodists — O'Kelley's Move- 
1* 5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

ment a Failure — Strawbridge refuses to be controlled by the 
Rules — Does great good as an Independent Preacher, and dies 
greatly respected 70 

CHAPTER IX. — A Secession prom St. George's — Organization 
of the Academy Society. 
A Graphic Incident by way of Introduction — Trouble in St. 
George's Society — Bourbons in those Days as now — The Cause 
of the Difficulty — More than Eighty Members secede — They 
form an Independent Society — They rent and subsequently Pur- 
chase the Old Academy — Who built the Academy — Dr. Frank- 
lin a Contributor — The Seceders return to the Conference Fold 
and are happy — Bishop Asbury in " the College Church" . . 79 

CHAPTER X. — A New Departure in Local Methodism — St. 
Thomas's Church a Failure. 
The History of the World a Reflex of its Creation — Enterprise of 
the Academy Society — Moving into Better Quarters — Westward 
the Star of Empire — The Academy People build a New Church 
on Tenth Street, and name it St. Thomas — Stephen Girard 
makes a Liberal Contribution — Girard and Doctor Stoughton — 
The New Church a Failure, and is sold to the Episcopalians — ■ 
Union Methodist Church 90 

CHAPTER XI. — Two Important General Conferences, 1808- 
1820 — Three Bishops die. 
A Revery on the Olden Time — The Church compared with the 
Government — A Sign of Danger to the Church — Threatening 
aspect of Affairs in 1808 — A Demand for the Election of Pre- 
siding Elders by the Preachers — and for a Delegated Represen- 
tation—Secession avoided through Concession — The General 
Conference changed to a Delegated Body — The Presiding Elder 
Question in 1820 — Death of Bishops Whatcoat, Coke, and As- 
bury 102 

CHAPTER XII.— More New Churches— A Great Preacher. 
" The Old Brick" — The Kensington District— Methodism preached 
under the Old Treaty Tree— St. John Street Church— The Old 
and the New — Remarks on Old Preachers — Rev. John P. Dur- 
bin — The Author's First Impressions of him — Appearances de- 
ceptive — The Old German Woman at Ebenezer — Mr. Durbin's 
Strange Power as a Preacher — A Wonderful and Startling Ser- 
mon at St. George's — Description of Mr. Durbin . . .113 

CHAPTER XIII. — Origin of Salem Church — An Eccentric and 
Popular Preacher. 
Frontier Settlements in Philadelphia— Bush Hill, Goosetown, etc. 
— Salem Alley the Birthplace of Salem Church— Rev. William 
Barns — Barns as an Orator — His Irish Brogue — His Eccentrici- 
ties — Barns as a Loyalist— Characteristic Anecdotes— The Pit- 
man-Barns Controversy — A charge of Heterodoxy not proven — 
Peculiarity of Doctrine— He dies in the Harness . . . 124 

CHAPTER XIV. — Origin of Nazareth — Rev. Solomon Higgins. 
The Methodists not all Saints— Old Father Gruber, the Circuit 
Rider — His Treatment of a Dissatisfied Member — The Germ of 
a New Church Society — Organization of Nazareth— The Perry 
Street Meeting- House — The Congregation builds a New Church 
Edifice— Sketch of Rev. Solomon Higgins — His Early History — 
Mr. Higgins as a Preacher— A Gentleman of the Old School- 
Anecdote of Gruber — First Methodist Episcopal Church in West 
Philadelphia— Close of Mr. Higgins's Career . . . .136 



CONTENTS. 



7 



CHAPTER XV. — A Controversy out of which grew a New 
Church. 

St. George's Charge convulsed — Stewards versus Trustees — Rev. 
George Cookman revives an Obsolete Law — It creates Great 
Disturbance — The Members take Sides pro and con — The Con- 
troversy grows hot — The Bishops interpose to make Peace — The 
Lawyers settle the Question — Dissatisfied Members withdraw 
from Ebenezer — They organize a New Society and christen it 
St. Paul's — They worship in Old Southwark Hall — Buy out the 
Methodist Protestants on Fifth Street — Build St. Paul's on 
Catharine Street — Liberality of Paul Beck — No Padlock on his 
Pocket or his Heart 146 

CHAPTER XVI.— Rev. John Newland Maffitt. 

Introduction on Oratory — Quintilian on the Power of Speech — Ap- 
pearance of Mr. Maffitt in the American Pulpit — His Birth and 
Parentage — His Personal Appearance described — Maffitt as a 
Sensational Preacher — His style of Oratory — Magnetic, flowery, 
finished, and dazzling — An Incident at Cincinnati — A Converted 
Horse-Jockey Backslides — Opinion of Mr. Maffitt's Character 

\ — Mr. Elsegood relates an Incident — Maffitt's Domestic Rela- 
tions — Leaves his Wife in Dublin, marries again in Brooklyn — 
Love with Gall and Honey doth abound — A Light Supper — 
Fatality of his Life; he dies broken-hearted .... 157 

CHAPTER XVII.— Lay Delegation— The Philadelphia Move- 
ment. 

Importance of the Laity — Sketch of the Movement to procure Lay 
Representation — Resistance of the Clergy — The Seed planted 
in a Dry- Goods Store brings forth Fruit — A Meeting of Lay 
Members from all the Churches called — Ninety-eight Meth- 
odist Gentlemen at Trinity — What they did — Another Meeting 
at Union — A General Convention is called — The Movement ob- 
structed by the War — It is successful after Twenty Years of 

Work . . .168 

CHAPTER XVIII.— Rev. Joseph Rusling. 

Introduction, Speech and the Press — Birth and Parentage of Rus- 
ling — Personal Description — His Education ; is a Pupil of Rev. 
William Mann — Rusling as a Poet — Rusling and Banghart on 
Circuit — " The Infernal Saints' Path" — Rusling on Burlington 
Circuit — Anecdote of an Old Lady — He is transferred to Phila- 
delphia — His Experience at St. John's — An Extraordinary Oc- 
currence — Obliged to expel a Member, Mr. Rusling and the 
Trustees are prosecuted — He remains in Philadelphia Six Years 
— He buys a Presbyterian Church and organizes Fifth Street- 
Rev. John Kennedy's Criticism — Rusling the Foster-Father of 
Abel Stevens — He takes him out of a Factory and educates him 
— Anecdote of his Brother Sedgwick — Rusling the Father of the 

Church at New Castle 182 

CHAPTER XIX.— The Itinerancy. 

Criticism on Progress and Religious Beliefs — Many Methodists 
tired of the Itinerancy — Incident concerning a New York Meth- 
odist — Comparisons of the Old and New — A Case in Point at 
Saratoga — Origin of the Itinerancy System — Whitefield and 
Wesley differ — First Preachers in Ireland — The Itinerancy in 
America — Its Great Importance and Results — Bishop Asbury 
on the Generations of Methodism — An Incident — Fashionable 
Methodists of the Seventh Generation ..... 196 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XX.— Camp-Meetings. 

The Great Church of the Future — The First Camp-Meeting in the 
United States — Bishop Simpson and Father Boehm don't agree 
— Camp-Meetings now and then — Lorenzo Dow inaugurates 
Camp-Meetings in England — The Wesleyan Conference pro- 
hibits them — Description of Dow — His Early Life and Experi- 
ence — His Trouble about Religion — He contemplates Suicide — 
He marries, and Travels extensively — His Wandering Life and 
Eccentricity — He is prosecuted for Libelling a Dead Man and 
is convicted— His Wife " Peggy" 208 

CHAPTER XXI. — Asbury on Church Location. 

Mr. Asbury's Opinion of Building Churches in Obscure Places — 
Fruitful Years — Establishment of Asbury Church, West Phila- 
delphia — Missionary Spirit at Ebenezer — Rev. George G. Cook- 
man preaching on the Wharf — The Devil's Stamping Ground — 
The Old Mariners' Bethel— The New Mariners' Bethel . .218 

CHAPTER XXII.— Rev. Charles Pitman. 

The Heart of a Statesman in his Head — David Paul Brown on 
Heart-Power — Birth and Education of Mr. Pitman — He takes 
the Field as an Exhorter in 1815 — His Career as Preacher 
and otherwise — Personal Appearance — His Mental Powers — His 
Great Power as a Preacher — A Thrilling Incident at St. George's 
— Mr. Pitman as a Business Man 228 

CHAPTER XXIII. — Controversy to be discouraged. 

Lord Bacon on "the Unity of Religion" — Bishop Asbury's Advice 
to Young Preachers — Rev. Henry G. King — His Personal Ap- 
pearance and Style of Dress — His Birth and Parentage — Pe- 
culiar Characteristics — His Ministry in Philadelphia — A Great 
Camp-Meeting Preacher — Gruber's play upon Names . . 236 

CHAPTER XXIV.— The Brickmakers of 1832. 

Introduction of the Cholera in Philadelphia — Panic among the 
People — Sinners resort to the Brick-Kilns for Salvation — The 
Brickmakers' Church organized — Meetings in an Old China- 
Factory — Doctor Swaim gives them Ground and they build a 
Church — Western Methodist Episcopal Church — Its want of 
Success — A Reminiscence ........ 245 

CHAPTER XXV.— There is no Time like the Old Time. 
A Retrospect — An Opinion by Ruskin — Ebenezer the First-Born of 
Mother St. George's — Her Offspring — Some Old Members — More 
Missionary Effort — A Sunday-School grows to be a Church 
Society — Bethesda Mission on Rye Street — Wharton Street 
Methodist Episcopal Church — Rev. John A. Boyle — Rev. Wm. 
C. Poulson 257 

CHAPTER XXVI.— Rev. John Wesley. 

Wesley as the Founder of Methodism — His Birth and Parentage 
—The Mother devotes the Son to God on account of his Provi- 
dential Escape from Death — His Grandfather — Wesley a Crea- 
ture of Circumstances — Comparison with the Reformers of Old 
— The Singular Experience of Mr. Wesley — He sails for America, 
and arrives at Savannah, Georgia— The New World a School 
of Instruction and Trial — His Affair with Miss Hopkey, and 
the Persecution that followed — He returns to England— His Per- 
sonal Appearance — Amiability and Firmness of Character com- 
bined 266 

Appendix. 

Doctrine — Articles of Religion — Statistics 283 



METHODISM, 

OLD A£TD NEW. 



CHAPTEE I. 

Origin of Methodism in England. 

The marked growth of the Christian denomination 
which owes its existence to Wesley, not only in our 
own but in other countries, renders a consideration of 
its movements or its status, either generally or locally, 
at all times a subject of much interest to very many 
persons. And it has hence been thought that a series 
of articles relating to its existence in the olden time, 
and its progress during the several decades that have 
since passed, would be acceptable to a large number of 
readers. 

It may be safely said that the period of our history 
covered by the years that have elapsed since the break- 
ing out of the recent rebellion have constituted not 
only " a fast age," but one of remarkable forgetfulness. 
It is not at all surprising that such is the fact, for the 
strain upon the public mind during the period covered 
by the war, supplemented and continued, as has been 
the case, by reason of the industrial and financial 
a* 9 



10 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



revolution that followed, has not only proved a most 
powerful absorbent of mind and memory, but a source 
of great demoralization, and it will require years of 
less " disjointed thinking" and reading to restore the 
necessary healthful equilibrium by which our people 
will be enabled to retrospect with facility and profit 
such portions of their country's history as are essential 
to creditable intercourse in society. 

We are a somewhat singular people, differing widely 
in many material ways and methods from any others on 
the face of the globe. Our propensity for overdoing 
things, for instance, is without a parallel in the history 
of other nations. This propensity leads to an under- 
doing, or a neglect of things that are vital to our in- 
terest, morally, politically, and commercially ; and it is 
greatly to be deplored that there has not been discovered 
some better means of calling a " halt" than the too often 
inevitable one that is best distinguished by the term 
" crash." The rapid progress made in our country 
during the half-century which closed with our centen- 
nial year has been of such startling character as to 
wellnigh daze the ordinary mind, and it is therefore 
not at all wonderful if the conditions that existed, or 
events that transpired, only two or three decades back 
of the present, are like so much Greek and Hebrew to 
an immensely large number of our people. To what 
extent this marvellous progress has been beneficial to 
the Church, and whether it has served to promote 
the original design of what is here best expressed as 
Wesley ism, or to obstruct it, is a question upon which 



ORIGIN OF METHODISM IN ENGLAND. H 



opinions will differ ; but the man or woman who knows 
anything about the origin of Methodism, and who goes 
into a Methodist church of the present day, especially 
such as are found in the large and populous cities of 
the country, gets but a poor idea of the primitive sort 
of meeting-house in which the fathers of the sect were 
wont to minister or worship ; and, glancing at the fash- 
ionable array and costly attire of " the congregation," 
one will seek in vain for the plainness recommended as 
an essential ingredient of the " new generation" by the 
founder of this now extensive denomination of Chris- 
tians. 

THE HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF METHODISM, 

although sparse enough, is a plain and simple one, and 
the name under which the Banner of the Cross has been 
carried to remotest quarters of the earth was given to 
it in derision, designed, indeed, to be one of reproach. 
It was in the year 1729 that a few students in the Ox- 
ford (England) University, lamenting the low-down 
condition to which the Church had fallen, and the want 
of vital Christianity that was everywhere apparent, 
even among the clergy, commenced the reading and 
study of the Sacred Scriptures in the original tongue. 

Bishop Simpson, in his recently-published " Cyclo- 
pedia," referring to the state of religion in Great Britain 
at the period mentioned, says it was " deplorable," and 
adds : " From the period of the restoration, infidelity 
was widely diffused, and it had deeply affected the edu- 
cated classes of society. Public morals suffered from 



12 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



the abandonment of religious principles, and from the 
example of those high in authority. While there were 
some of the clergy of the Church of England illus- 
trious for intellectual power and personal piety, many 
were quite ignorant, and even loose in their morals. 
Writers like Swift and Sterne indulged in licentious 
humor, to the discredit of the pulpit which they occu- 
pied, while other clergymen spent their time in hunting, 
gambling, and intemperance. Doctrinal views were 
as unsettled as conduct. Arianism and Socinianism 
were advocated by such writers as Clarke, Priestley, 
and Whiston, and evangelical piety was regarded as 
fanaticism. Bishop Burnett deploringly says 6 the out- 
ward state of things is bad enough, God knows, but 
that which heightens my fears rises chiefly from the 
inward state into which we are unhappily fallen/ i Of 
the clergy/ he adds, 'the much greater part of those 
who come to be ordained are ignorant to a great degree 
not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged 
to know it/ . . . Dr. Watts, the eminent poet, states 
that, 'both among dissenters and churchmen, there was 
a general decay of religion in the hearts and lives of 
men/ Archbishop Decker says 6 such are the dissolute- 
ness and contempt of principle in the higher part of 
the world, and the profligacy, intemperance, and fearless- 
ness of committing crime in the lower, as must, if this 
torrent of impiety stop not, become absolutely fatal/ "* 



* Hon. Benjamin Harris Brewster, in an elaborate and finished 
address delivered before the literary societies of Dickinson Col- 



ORIGIN OF METHODISM IN ENGLAND. 



13 



Other authors show the same deplorable condition of 
the churches and the masses of the people, and it was 



lege at the ninety-sixth commencement of that institution, re- 
ferring to the period immediately preceding the inception of 
Methodism, and the then existing and dangerous condition of 
society in England, says, " Turn then to the history of England, 
at, and about the time of its (Methodism's) establishment, and 
we will immediately see how potential it was for the political, 
social, and temporal security of that kingdom. "When John 
Wesley felt the divine impulse within him, when, chosen and 
sanctified by God's grace, he went forth to save men, there was 
a season of lassitude and indifference. The very devil of sensual 
impiety and heartless irreligion pervaded all walks of life. Chris- 
tianity was not believed in. It was treated as if it were untrue, 
but permitted because it was necessary for society to have some 
form of religious belief. . . . The chief ministers of the Church, 
often stained with sin and puffed up with pride, delivered over 
to underlings the people they were deputed to guide and save. 
The rich were growing richer, the poor poorer. The vulgar vices 
of those in authority were readily taken up and imitated by the 
untaught and unprotected population. Infidelity was active, 
aggressive, and generally diffused ; rebellious discontent was fer- 
menting in the souls of men who saw no happiness in this life, 
and who believed they were doomed to a fate of perpetual labor, 
living on the edge of starvation. Society was sick, sick to its 
heart of hearts, and a fearful storm was gathering. That senti- 
ment of Nihilism which Peter Lombard, the ' master of the sen- 
tences,' is reported to have taught in the twelfth century, and 
Abelard is accused of having been the author of, and which now 
infests the Kussian Empire, and was the ruling principle of 
communistic action, was crawling over the public mind of the 
common people of Great Britain. . . . 

" The bloodshed and blasphemy of the French Eevolution would 
have been repeated in England, had it not been for the interposi- 
tion of this religious zeal, excited and organized by John Wesley. 

2 



14 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



in presence of this wretched state of affairs, that the 
students already mentioned set about the work of vital- 
izing, or, to use a modern term, reconstructing them- 
selves, with a view, doubtless, to sow broadcast the seed 
from which might result the fruit they expected to reap 
through an honest and sincere study of the Word of 
God in all its entirety. These young men formed them- 
selves into a society, the membership of which was at 
first confined to an extremely small number. Their 
object w T as not simply to read and study the Scriptures, 
but to aid and support each other in efforts for religious 
improvement. They arranged their time and systema- 
tized their conduct, and fixed for themselves and ob- 
served certain times and periods for fasting and prayer, 
and, as they progressed and received inspiration from on 
High, they went outside of the University among the 
people, carrying with them the faith with which they 
had been inspired, and exhorting the people to repent- 
ance and reformation ; and here may be said to have 
originated what we may quite properly characterize as 
the colossal structure now known as Methodism. The 
fellow-students of these young pioneers in the work of 

The middle and lower classes were captivated with its influence, 
and thus diverted from righting their grievances with the sword 
or the flames of revolution. The very men who suffered most, 
and would have heen the first to have revolted against the evils 
that enveloped them, were the first to repel all attempts to excite 
them to acts of resistance and popular tumult. . . . The men 
who shouted with Wesley and Whitefield at their chapels and in 
their field preaching, would have heen raving with anarchy and 
burning with hatred for all religion.' 7 



ORIGIN OF METHODISM IN ENGLAND. 15 



Gospel truth, of course, ridiculed them, and applied to 
them various terms designed to be of reproach. They 
called them "Holy Bigots," "The Godly Club," "The 
Holy Club," and Methodists, a term which had been 
applied in derision very many years before to a sect of 
persons otherwise known as Anabaptists. 

JOHN WESLEY, 

who a great many persons in this country believe to 
have been an illiterate person, was a Fellow of Lincoln 
College. He was a man of superior attainments and 
an accomplished scholar. He had been ordained a 
priest, and had acted for some time as a curate. At 
the period stated he was about twenty-five years old, a 
sincere and devout Christian. 

As the little society w^hich originated in Oxford grew 
by degrees, and began to be felt outside of the Univer- 
sity, Mr. Wesley was added to its number. Something 
older than the others, he developed administrative ability 
that attracted attention, and, as is usual in all such cases, 
he was very soon accepted as a leader of the little band, 
just as Washington and other heroes of our Kevolu- 
tionary times who developed the needed capacity, 
whether of a civil or military character, were accepted 
by the people as leaders in either council or field of 
war ; and directly there grew into being an active or- 
ganization, with Mr. Wesley as its head and director. 
Among 

THE PIONEERS OF METHODISM 

in England were also Charles Wesley, an educated man, 



16 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and a college tutor ; the celebrated preacher Whitefield, 
Doctor Coke, Morgan, Kirkham, Burridge, Hervey, 
and Ingham, and, by way of ridicule, Mr. Wesley was 
styled, by the opposition that would naturally exist to 
such a movement, the " Curator of the Holy Club." 
The little society grew apace, but differences arose as to 
points of doctrine, and some of those at first connected 
with it turned their steps in other directions. We do 
not find that there was, at the beginning of this move- 
ment, any intention on the part of those concerned in 
it to organize or establish a separate church or denomi- 
nation, but it is ever thus of progressive movements 
which concern the interest of the masses of mankind. 
If the principle involved be of a vital character, it 
grows as it is elaborated, and its swelling proportions 
directly call for such substantial recognition as results 
in distinctive and permanent organization. 

Within ten years after the date given above, the 
Wesleys visited this country, and after their return to 
England they began the public preaching of the Word. 
Whitefield, however, took the field in advance, and the 
churches being closed against him, he preached in the 
open air. 

" Letting down the gilded chains from high, 
He drew his audience upward to the sky." 

" I thought," said he, " that it might be doing the 
service of my Creator, who had a mountain for His 
pulpit and the heavens for a sounding-board ; and who, 
when His gospel was rejected by the Jews, sent His 



ORIGIN OF METHODISM IN ENGLAND. 17 

servants into the highways and hedges." This declara- 
tion was probably made in justification of what the 
Wesleys were disposed at first to consider too much of 
an innovation, for Whitefield was really the advance 
courier of Methodism in the open field, the pioneer who 
went before all the rest, and felled the trees in the 
forests, and cut away the matted accumulations, the 
growth of many years of ignorance, neglect, and de- 
bauchery that had overspread the land ; but the Wes- 
leys followed shortly after him, and the elder of these 
two, feeling, probably, that he also must justify his 
departure from the " decorum" of the Church establish- 
ment, said, "I submitted to be more vile, and pro- 
claimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation 
and thus was the bark of the new generation of Chris- 
tians got ready for launching on the sea of public opinion 
in England. But it was as yet a shapeless affair. A 
single word signified the nature of the propelling force, 
and that was reform. There was then no dream of 
revolution. Nothing more was sought than a revival 
of religion ; a calling back of the people to duty, and 
a realization of their responsibility to God. We shall 
see, however, as Ave progress, 

" The matchless working of the Power 
That shuts within the seed the future flower, 
Bids these in elegance of form excel, 
In color these, and these delight the smell : 
Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies, 
To dance on earth and charm all human eyes." 



2* 



CHAPTER II. 

Introduction of Methodism in America. 

Although it is historically stated that " Methodism 
was introduced into New York and Maryland in 1766, 
and gradually spread along the coast," it may, never- 
theless, be fairly claimed that Philadelphia is the birth- 
place of American Methodism; and, considering the 
predominance of the Quaker element in that city in the 
olden time, the fact is one of just pride to its very many 
citizens who are connected with that denomination of 
Christians. It was there that the first "Annual Confer- 
ence" was held, and there stands to-day the oldest Meth- 
odist church edifice in America. It was there, also, that 
the first " General Conference" was held, and, for many 
years, the " Quaker City" was the fountain from which 
flowed the streamlets which in after-times grew to 
be swollen rivers of Gospel truth and vital Chris- 
tianity. 

Bishop Simpson, in his " Cyclopaedia of Methodism," 
says: "As early as 1767, Captain Webb held the 
first Methodist service in Philadelphia. Dr. Wran- 
gle, a Swedish missionary, who had preached in Phila- 
delphia, and who was acquainted with Mr. Wesley's 
writings, on leaving that city had recommended his 
members to hear any of Mr. Wesley's preachers who 
18 



INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 19 



might visit that city. Hence the way was prepared for 
Captain Webb's reception." The author adds : " In 
1768 he organized a class of seven members, . . . and 
during 1769 additions were made to the society." This 
" society/' which constituted, as we think, the first or- 
ganization of Methodism in America, met for some time 
in a sail-loft on the edge of what was then Dock Creek, 
near where is now the line of Front Street. During 
this year, as is learned from the authority quoted, 
Messrs. Boardman and Pilmoor arrived in Philadelphia 
as missionaries, sent out by Mr. Wesley, the former, 
after having preached there for a while, going to New 
York. Mr. Pilmoor, who remained in that city, wrote 
to Mr. Wesley that he found there about " an hundred 
members." 

Bishop Simpson, in his article on New York City, 
says : " The first Methodist society in New York was 
founded in 1776," — eight years later, as will be seen, 
than the date given for the sail-loft organization or 
society in Philadelphia, and seven years after Mr. Pil- 
moor had written to England that he found there " an 
hundred members." It is true that there had been 
some preaching in New York previous to the time fixed 
as the period for the foundation of the first society in 
that city, and there was certainly exhortation by Em- 
bury, and some preaching by Captain Webb as early 
as 1768 ; but the question of priority in this connection 
is not, perhaps, of sufficient importance to warrant a 
discussion of it at greater length. 



20 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



THE SOLDIER PREACHER. 

The mention of Captain Webb as a Methodist 
preacher will doubtless sound strangely to modern ears, 
but his appearance in the pulpit, improvised in those 
days with a few boards to protect the speaker's feet 
from moisture, and the clouds for a drapery, was but a 
repetition of history. Methodism originally was revo- 
lution, the condition from which orators, statesmen, 
preachers, and generals grow out spontaneously. It 
was coeval with the political revolution out of which 
grew the nation which to-day challenges the admira- 
tion of the world, and it may not be doubted that its 
wonderful success, not only here, but in other lands, 
has been largely influenced by the baptism of Liberty 
which it received during the years of its early life on 
this side of the Atlantic. 

Captain Webb was an English army officer, and 
had charge of the barracks at Albany. He was a 
man of good social position, and of unstinted means, 
so that he was useful in more ways than through 
preaching. He is spoken of as a zealous and, for 
those times, a most effective preacher; albeit, even 
then, some of the people objected to his style. He 
was, however, the sort of man that was required for 
the work. Going forward, like a pioneer, through 
the wilderness, he roused the people from their stupor, 
and prepared the way for those who were to follow 
him. 

The very early history of Methodism in our country 



INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 21 



seems involved in a good deal of obscurity, at least, until 
the period when there was an unquestioned " General 
Conference" meeting. For some years after the earliest 
date mentioned, and indeed, until after the war of the 
Revolution, the fortunes or progress of the new move- 
ment were of a varied and shifting nature. It is ever 
thus, however, with such an enterprise. In this case the 
advocates and adherents of the new movement were 
too noisy for the staid Quakers, who formed a con- 
siderable element in Philadelphia, and they were not 
sufficiently " respectable" or high-toned for the other 
very considerable and most wealthy class connected 
with the Established Church. But revolutions, be 
they moral or political, stop not to consider such ques- 
tions. 

Preaching was conducted at several places in Phila- 
delphia during the earliest stages of the work, frequently 
in the open air ; a policy which was adopted, doubtless, 
for two reasons : first, the want of a building, and, 
second, the better opportunity there was to gather an 
outside audience of greater numbers. The field which 
is now known as Franklin Square was used in those 
days for a race-course, and Pilmoor and others frequently 
held forth there to large numbers of the people, using the 
judges' stand for a rostrum. The old " Potter's Field," 
now Washington Square, wherein are deposited the bones 
of many thousand victims of the plague by which our 
brethren in the South have been so sorely stricken 
during the past two summers, was also used as a 
preaching station, notably by John King, to whom 



22 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Mr. Pilmoor objected at first, because he had not suf- 
ficient confidence in his fitness for the work. King 
persevered, however, in what he considered his mission, 
and it was not long before Mr. Pilmoor was glad to 
embrace him as a co-laborer in the vineyard of the 
Lord.* 

Mr. Pilmoor, like Mr. Wesley, came out from the 
Established Church, and it would seem as though a 
good deal of effort was needed to enable these gentlemen 
to overcome what we may, without offence, term their 

* Mr. King was subsequently assigned to Delaware, and thence 
went into Maryland, and is said to have been the first man to 
preach Methodism in Baltimore. His first sermon in that city 
was delivered at Front and French Streets, and his " pulpit" was 
the anvil-block taken out of a blacksmith-shop. It is stated that 
a Mr. Baker, surveyor of the county, was awakened and con- 
verted under that sermon. The second preaching of King was 
at the corner of Baltimore and Calvert Streets, where he had a 
table for a preaching-stand. It was " training day," and the 
militia were u on parade," and some of them being under the 
influence of liquor, and finding no enemy to attack, assailed the 
preacher, and upset his pulpit, and he was protected from further 
molestation by the captain. King was not only a shouting 
preacher, but rather an uproarious one, and made so much noise 
that the report of it reached Mr. Wesley, who was impelled to 
write to him from England, begging that he would reform his 
methods. He wrote, " Scream no more at the peril of your soul. 
God now warns you by me, who he has set over you. Speak as 
earnestly as you can, but do no't scream. Speak with all your 
heart, but with a moderate voice. It was said of our Lord * he 
shall not cry; 1 the word properly means he shall not scream. 
Herein be a follower of me as I am of Christ." Mr. King, who 
was an Englishman, finally located in Kaleigh, North Carolina, 
where he died. 



INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 23 

prejudice against "lay preachers." The same thing 
occurred with Wesley in England. On a certain occa- 
sion, while he was away from London visiting different 
localities, Thomas Maxfield began preaching. He was 
not among those authorized by Mr. Wesley. He was, 
in fact, a volunteer ; and on hearing of his being thus 
engaged, Mr. Wesley hastened his return to London, 
and was about to prohibit further preaching by Max- 
field; but his mother, in whose judgment he had great 
confidence, had heard him preach, and she remonstrated 
with the son, saying : " Be careful what you do with 
respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of 
God to preach as you are," and, she added, " examine 
what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear 
him for yourself." Mr. Wesley followed the advice of 
his mother, and, being convinced, gave his approval. 
This was the first time, we think, that he had agreed 
to the employment of lay preachers in the work ; and 
thus was another link in the ecclesiastical chain that 
still held him to the Established Church broken, but 
we believe it is understood that, notwithstanding the 
prominence of his position in the establishment of 
Methodism, he never severed his connection with the 
Church of England. 

DISCOUKAGEMENTS. 

At times, and especially during the war of the Revo- 
lution, and afterward when the city was visited by yellow 
fever, the progress of Methodism in Philadelphia was 
greatly retarded, — so much so, indeed, as that at one 



24 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



time the name of that city failed to appear on the 
records of the Conference, the work that was done 
being credited in the name of Pennsylvania ; but there 
was such a vitality about what we may properly term 
the " reformation," set on foot by Wesley and his co- 
workers in England, that it soon sprang forward again 
with a spirit and enthusiasm that is most wonder- 
fully illustrated by the centennial status of Methodism, 
when 1,032,184 members were reported as in the com- 
munion, with 7576 itinerant and 8602 local preachers. 
The war itself must have proved, under any circum- 
stances that were likely to exist, a great embarrassment 
to the progress of the work. The demoralization which 
is a natural result of war would necessarily be a cause 
of obstruction, but a more serious cause of trouble was 
that most of the preachers were from England, and 
they failed to become impregnated with the spirit of 
liberty by which the mass of the people were controlled. 
They seem to have been bound by a double tie : fidelity 
to the u home government" and a yet lingering affection 
for the Established English Church, and, as soon as it 
was made manifest that the colonies were determined 
to break away from the mother-country, they, with in- 
considerable exceptions, made preparation for returning 
to England, which they did ; and thus was the infant 
Church left for a time to drift in the maelstrom of con- 
fusion, with but few experienced hands or heads to 
guide it. Mr. Asbury, however, who was afterward 
invested with the robes of the bishopric, stood firmly 
at his post, guiding and directing with consummate 



INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM IN AMERICA. 25 



skill, and keeping the flock together as well as possible 
under the circumstances.* 

The office of bishop was not established in the 
Methodist denomination for several years after the 
organization of Conferences. In 1773, Mr. Rankin 
reached Philadelphia, having been appointed by Mr. 
Wesley " general superintendent" of the work in 
America, and this was the title of an executive officer 
until the growth and better establishment of the Church 
* gave to it such importance and needs as suggested an 
office and power of greater dignity. For a time Mr. 
Wesley was recognized as the head of the Church in 
America, as well as in England. The General Con- 
ference of 1784 passed a resolution declaring that, 
u during the life of Rev. Mr. Wesley, we do recognize 
ourselves as his sons in the Gospel, ready in matters 
belonging to the Church government to obey his com- 
mands but it was not long before the spirit of re- 
publicanism or democracy which was growing up 



* During the war, such of the preachers as had come from 
England, and who remained, were looked upon with much sus- 
picion by the loyalists, especially in Delaware and Maryland ; 
and they were closely watched, and it may have been that cause 
therefor had been given by some indiscreet utterances ; and for 
a time Mr. Asbury found it prudent to conceal himself from 
public view, during which retirement he was the guest of his 
friend Mr. Thomas White, in the State of Delaware. Asbury, 
however, was in accord with the popular movement, and, obtain- 
ing an opportunity to make his sentiments in reference to the 
conflict known, he was ever afterwards received with respect and 
cordiality. 

B 3 



26 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



among the people revolted at a control which, however 
kindly in design, was found to be impracticable, and 
three years later, at a Conference held in obedience to 
his direction, the resolution conferring upon him the 
supreme executive power was rescinded. It can scarcely 
be necessary to say that this latter action involved no 
disrespect to the originator of the Church. The same 
sort of incongruity that grew up between the British 
government and the colonies, separated by an ocean, 
could not fail to follow an attempt to govern an Ameri- 
can Church in England. Something approximating to 
success in such an enterprise might result in this age of 
steamships and cablegrams, when the ocean has been 
reduced to a ferry, with limits so circumscribed as that 
men speak with each other on either side ; but in the 
early days of Methodism, when months were required 
to make a journey between the two countries, such a 
governing power on the other side of the Atlantic must 
have proved simply destructive to the work in hand. 
The term superintendent continued to be in use until 
the Conference of 1787, when that of bishop was sub- 
stituted. The first three bishops of the American 
Church were Thomas Coke, Francis Asbury, and 
Kichard Whatcoat, and they were all from the British 
Wesleyan Conference. Bishops Coke and Asbury w 7 ere 
consecrated in 1784, and Bishop Whatcoat in 1800. 



CHAPTER III. 



Class-Meetings the Seed of the Church. 

It was not until after the Revolution and the treaty 
of peace with the mother-country that American Meth- 
odism was enabled to shake off the elements of ob- 
struction that seemed, up to that time, to cling about 
and hamper its progress. Filtered out from what must, 
in candor, be stated as the corruption of the English 
Church, it was not only stubbornly resisted by the ad- 
herents of that establishment, but was more or less 
embarrassed by a still-lingering affection on the part of 
many of the leaders for the traditional forms and 
memories among which they had been reared. It is 
very clear that Mr. Wesley had no idea of establishing 
a. new church or religious denomination when he begun 
his work, and much less had he a conception of the 
magnitude of the structure that would be reared from 
the modest effort of his early days. He was, to a very 
great extent, the creature of circumstances, sincere, 
earnest, and zealous, in his own purpose, but constantly 
controlled by a superior power. He clung to the Es- 
tablished Church with a tenacity and a reverence for its 
traditions that were both natural and characteristic, and, 
as has already been seen, it was with great reluctance 
that he betook himself to the fields and sheds of the 

27 



28 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



mining districts after the doors of the churches had 
been closed against him and his followers, and it was 
probably needful that he should for a time be abused, 
maligned, hunted, as it w r ere, and pelted with stones 
and other missiles as he was, to strengthen his purpose, 
and make more determined his resistance to the error 
and immorality which had not only crept into, but ab- 
solutely permeated, the Established Church of the realm. 
Many men would have yielded and succumbed to such 
persecution as was for a time visited upon him and 
his associates, but, guided and sustained by Almighty 
power, they faltered not. 

But it is worth while to glance just here at the sim- 
plicity of the movement out of which such a magnifi- 
cent structure as Methodism is to-day was evolved. 
The class-meeting, which is even yet the most vital and 
essential element of Methodism, was the result of acci- 
dent. It grew out of the social relation, and was a 
sort of natural emanation. Singularly enough, what is 
to the general public the most obscure and apparently 
most inconsiderable stone in the structure of Methodism, 
was really its chief foundation block, upon which has 
been reared the towering and massive establishment 
whose arms reach out to all quarters of the globe, and 
whose voice is heard in proclamation wherever the ear 
of mankind can be reached. It is thought by many 
persons that " the classes" have lost much of their pres- 
tige, and we do not doubt that, considering relative 
numbers, their efficiency is much less than in the olden 
time. The truth is, that Methodism has progressed, 



CLASS-MEETINGS THE SEED OF THE CHURCH. 29 

not alone in numbers, in influence, and in power, but 
also and alas ! in the vanities with which the world is 
besotted, and it may not be questioned that many, very 
many, who are enrolled in its great army are but whited 
sepulchres, bearing only the shadow or the profession 
of the Cross, without being influenced by its spirit. 
The English Methodists cling to the class-meetings 
with much greater pertinacity than do the Americans. 
They are still considered there as a prime test of mem- 
bership, and we incline to the opinion that this fact 
gives to Methodism in England a better meaning than in 
America. We can imagine, however, why the gambler 
who u bulls" and " bears" the stock market, assisting 
to wreck fortunes in an hour, that he may thereby put 
money in his pocket, and whose name is inscribed on 
the church-roll, avoids the class-room, and we can also 
understand how uncongenial must be the exercises and 
devotions of that little room to the lawyer who, in 
derogation of his professional duty and in practical 
violation of his oath of office, will take fees from both 
sides, or who, to gain his cause and win his fee, 

" Quibbles truth to be error and wrong to be right.' 7 

Such people, who are "members" and who frequently 
contribute largely to the embellishment of the churches 
and for other purposes, neglect or avoid this essential 
element Or practice of genuine Methodism, and hence 
the complaint that is frequently uttered, that while the 
churches seem to be in a most flourishing condition, 
" the love of God" abideth not in them as of yore. 

a* 



30 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



We have said that the origin of the class-meeting 
was the result of accident, and that it grew out of the 
social relation. Perhaps we should qualify the state- 
ment as to the accident, but the origin was thus : on a 
certain occasion Mr. Wesley was asked to meet a few 
persons who felt that they needed advice, counsel, and, 
doubtless, encouragement, and he did so. The result 
was so satisfactory that they met again, and again, and 
yet again, the number of those present being increased 
from time to time by invitation. Out of this casual 
circumstance grew the weekly class-meetings. In 1742, 
the societies in England being largely increased, they 
were divided into classes consisting of twelve members 
each, with one of the number as " the leader." Mr. 
Wesley says : " In the latter end of the year 1739 eight 
or ten persons came to me in London and desired that I 
would spend some time with them in prayer, and advise 
them how to flee the wrath to come. This," he adds, 
"was the rise of the United Society;" and Bishop Simp- 
son says: u It was at Bristol, February 15, 1742, whilst 
discussing the subject of debt" (wonderful concomitant 
of life), "that one arose and proposed that every member 
of the society should pay one penny a week; another said 
that some were so poor they could not afford it, when the 
first replied : 6 Put eleven of the poorest with me, and, 
if they can give nothing, I will give for them as well as 
for myself, and each of you call upon eleven weekly, re- 
ceive what they can afford and make up the difference/ 
From this sprung forth this mighty organization." 

Primitive enough, certainly ; twelve men in a class 



CLASS-MEETINGS THE SEED OF THE CHURCH. 31 

with a leader, out of which grew " stewards" to gather 
the fund and disburse it to the men who would go on 
circuit to preach; and as the plant develops — first the 
little shoot above the ground, then the bud, then the 
leaf, then the blossom, and finally the fruit, full grown 
and ripe — so did "this mighty organization," as the 
bishop terms it, evolve from an insignificance of begin- 
ning that is, in comparison, simply astounding. 

It seems impossible to proceed with this subject with- 
out pausing for a moment to contemplate the wonderful 
growth that has resulted from such a beginning. "Pre- 
vision and exact calculation," says M. Guizot, in his 
lately published "History of France," "do not count 
for so much in the lives of governments and peoples. 
It is unexpected events, inevitable situations, the impe- 
rious necessities of successive epochs, which most often 
decide the conduct of the greatest powers and the most 
able politicians." Such is the fact. Historians, in the 
seclusion of their retirement, and in their learned way, 
are much given to look back on the development of 
events long past, and attribute them as results of well- 
digested and systematic plans concocted or arranged by 
the chief actors, the truth, all the while, being that they 
were produced by uncontrolled and, perhaps, irresistible 
circumstances. No one can read what there is of the 
early history of Methodism without coming to the con- 
clusion stated by the distinguished author from whom 
we have quoted. Truly, 

" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them as we will." 



32 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



And while we agree to Guizot's proposition, as appli- 
cable to the doings of men, we know, that He 

11 Who reins the wind, gives the 
Vast ocean bounds, 
And circumscribes the floating 
Worlds their rounds." 

could alone have piloted to such a fruition. 

We remarked in a previous chapter that the oldest 
Methodist church edifice in America stands in the city 
of Philadelphia. It is St. George's, and is located on 
the east side of Fourth Street, between Race and Vine 
Streets, and we shall not err, we think, if we give to it 
the distinction of being the oldest Methodist church 
edifice in the world. The rude hand of progress, by 
which rivers are turned from their course and mountains 
pierced as with a needle, has spared to us this souvenir 
of the past. We know that it is revered by very many 
for its refreshing associations, but it should be cherished 
as a holy shrine, to which Methodists from all the world 
might go and worship ; and the hand that would be 
raised to destroy it should be palsied. The old fort 
was built in 1763 by a German Reformed society, a 
congregation that had been worshipping in the neigh- 
borhood. They failed, however, to do more than to 
get up the walls and put a roof on the building. The 
lot on which the church stands is 55 by 85 feet, and 
was taken up by the Germans on ground-rent. When 
the building was roofed in, the society was much in 
debt, and some of the members were put in prison 
on account of their inability to pay, and subsequently 



OLD SAINT GEORGE'S CHURCH, 33 



the church was sold by order of the " Provincial As- 
sembly." It was purchased by an individual, who 
afterwards, in November, 1769, sold it to a member of 
the Methodist society for £650, Pennsylvania currency. 
When purchased by the Methodists it had no floor, and 
for a considerable time only the eastern half was floored 
and furnished with benches of rough boards, according 
to the camp-meeting style. At a time during the war, 
in 1777, when the city was occupied by the British 
army, they took possession of the church, and used it 
for drilling their cavalry. After the peace, Bishop 
Asbury took hold of the matter, and labored most 
earnestly to have the building paid for and finished ; 
but it was not until the year 1791 that the galleries 
were erected, and at that time there were enough 
Methodists in the city to fill the house, including the 
galleries ; but it was yet an unfinished structure, and a 
few years later the good Bishop organized another 
movement to raise means for the completion and im- 
provement of the house. In later years other improve- 
ments were made, the walls being raised so as to give a 
basement for class and school rooms. 

St. George's may be truthfully styled the mother of 
churches. From her have sprung, either directly or 
remotely, all the Methodist churches in Philadelphia. 
For many years " St. George's charge" was the control- 
ling power over the local Methodism. All the preachers 
for the city were assigned or appointed by the Confer- 
ence to " St. George's charge," and thence were detailed 
to alternate in the several churches that had grown up 



34 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and which were in " the charge." A " plan" was ar- 
ranged on the principle of the Counting House calen- 
dar. A would preach in the morning at St. George's, 
in the evening at Ebenezer, and on the following Sun- 
day he would preach, say, at Salem in the morning, and 
at Nazareth in the evening, while B and C would on that 
day supply the pulpits which A had occupied on the 
previous Sabbath, so that the several congregations em- 
braced in " the charge" had an opportunity to hear all 
the preachers that were stationed in the city alternately. 
The afternoon service in the churches was generally 
conducted by " local preachers," of whom there was a 
fair supply in the city. These were for the most part 
well-to-do mechanics or persons engaged in other occu- 
pations, some of whom we shall have occasion to notice 
in future chapters. 

Glorious memories and associations are connected 
with old St. George's. Many thousands have been 
profited by the preaching and the prayers which as- 
cended from within those walls ; and other thousands, 
whose spirits now bask in realms " where seraphs 
gather immortality," date their new birth from under 
the roof-tree of the oldest Methodist church edifice in 
the country. It is the only church in the connection 
whose date runs back one hundred years, and was at 
the close of the centennial year of Methodism the scene 
of highly interesting centenary services. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Old Churches. 

It is a notable circumstance that while Methodism 
had its origin in England, the first "conference" of 
ministers there was not held until 1774, or a year later 
than that held in Philadelphia, in 1773. This may be 
accounted for by the fact that there was greater need 
for preachers to come together for the transaction of 
business in this country than existed in England, where 
Mr. Wesley was the supreme director of affairs. The 
spirit of Republicanism seemed to be an ingredient, or 
rather, perhaps, we should say an inspiration, of the 
Methodist birth. It is also likely that the more ad- 
vanced ideas of the people generally here had an im- 
portant influence to push the movement to an organized 
condition. The men engaged in the work on this side 
of the Atlantic, although, as seen in a previous chapter, 
for the most part clinging to the home government, 
were not influenced to the same extent by the traditions 
of the Old Church, as were those engaged in England; 
besides, the people who joined the Methodists here came 
largely from the Moravians, and those who had, to some 
extent, been recognized as Lutherans ; and, in addition 
to all this, there was surrounding the preachers in 

35 



36 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



America a morale of progress which was not experienced 
on the other side of the water. 

As the virgin soil of a new country is richer and 
greatly more productive when prepared for cultivation 
than that of an old one, so it has ever been found that 
the people, both men and women, who settle it, are more 
actively progressive, and we shall therefore find that in 
point of numbers, wealth and power, American Meth- 
odism has kept in advance of that of the mother-coun- 
try. It is also a subject for gratulation that American 
Methodism has been much less a subject of division 
into sub-sects than it has in Great Britain; and here 
again we are brought to a realization of the superiority 
of those American institutions which give form, char- 
acter, and faith to the various denominations that are 
fostered by their benign influence. 

THE PIONEERS OF LOCAL METHODISM 

in Philadelphia have long since been retired to their 
well-earned rest in the mansions of their God, but their 
descendants are yet with us, many of them occupying 
honored places not only in the Church, but in other 
relations of life ; and it may hence be worth while to 
recall the names of a few of those who first braved the 
sneer and reproach of such persons as affected to despise 
the adherents of Wesley. The old Saint George's 
church, to which we referred somewhat briefly in our 
last chapter, after being sold by order of the Provincial 
Assembly, and purchased by young Hockley (probably 
Heockley), was conveyed to Miles Pennington, a tallow 



THE OLD CHURCHES. 



37 



chandler, who was a member of the infant society ; and 
Mr. Asbury, when referring to the church for some 
years after its purchase and possession, mentioned it as 
"our preaching-house;" so it would seem the name 
Saint George's, by which it is ;now known, was not 
given to it until about the year 1781, after which time 
he so termed it in his writings. 

Doctor Lednum, referring to the first improvement 
of the building by which it was made ready as a place 
of worship, said : " It was floored from end to end, and 
more comely seats were put in it, with a new pulpit like 
a tall tub on a post, which was the fashion of the times, 
but one of the worst fashions that ever was for a pulpit." 
Watson, in his " Annals," says it was " A dreary, cold- 
looking place in winter time, when, from the leaky 
stove-pipe, mended with clay, the smoke would fre- 
quently issue and fill all the house ;" and describing the 
pulpit he says : " About twenty feet from the east end 
there stood a square thing not unlike a watch-box with 
the top sawed off," — rather an obscure description after 
all, perhaps, to thousands of our readers, who have not 
the slightest knowledge concerning what was the watch- 
box of half a century ago that was found fastened down 
on the pavement at many of the street corners. 

Here we may pause for a moment to notice the tem- 
per of Mr. Watson's reference to Methodism in his 
"Annals," every line of which, nearly, betokens the 
prejudiced mind. It is only about twenty years since 
Mr. Watson's book passed through the press, albeit the 
ill-natured remarks indulged in concerning a denomi- 

4 



38 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



nation of people now so extensive, and indeed potential, 
were probably written many years previously ; but all 
that he has to say of Methodism is in the worst possible 
taste, and it is to be hoped that, if the work is ever re- 
published, the editor, whoever he may be, will have 
the discretion to eliminate the offensive passages.. Dr. 
Lednum, referring to the contempt for the early Meth- 
odists as evinced by some persons in the olden time, 
narrates the case of an individual who always made it 
a point, as he said, to cross to the other side of Fourth 
Street when about to pass Saint George's. Now, the 
same individual, if living, and maintaining the same 
prejudice, would probably walk on the railway track, 
in the centre of the street, and thus keep as far away 
as possible from the two extremes of Methodism on the 
one side and Roman Catholicism on the other. 

But to return : Mr. Pennington conveyed the old 
church to Richard Boardman, Joseph Pillmore, Thomas 
Webb, Edward Evans, Daniel Montgomery, John 
Dowers, Edmund Beach, Robert Fitzgerald, and James 
Emerson. The sail-loft property at Dock Creek, in 
which the society had previously worshipped, belonged 
to a Mr. Croft, who was also a prominent Methodist. 
In 1789 the trustees of the church were James Kenear, 
Thomas Arnnatt, Jacob Baker, and John Hood, " the 
sweet singer" as he was termed, and who for many years 
stood in front of the ugly pulpit, and, " raising the 
hymns," led the congregation in singing. James 
Doughty, Josiah Luseby, Duncan Stewart, and Burton 
Wallace were also trustees at the same time. Lambert 



THE OLD CHURCHES. 



39 



Wilmer, who was a militia officer during the Revolu- 
tionary war, was also a prominent Methodist. 

Robert Fitzgerald, already mentioned as one of the 
trustees of Saint George's, was one of the most earnest 
and active men in the connection. He was a block 
and pump maker, and lived in the neighborhood of 
Penn and Shippen, now Bainbridge Street, very proba- 
bly on the same spot where an extensive sugar-refinery 
now stands. His shop was a sort of headquarters for 
the down -town or South wark Methodists, and was fre- 
quently visited by the preachers, his dwelling being at 
all times open for their entertainment on either long or 
short stays. 

As early as the year 1774 what was then, as now, 
known as the "New Market," at Second and Pine 
Streets, was used for preaching purposes by the Meth- 
odists, the stalls serving as seats for such of the people 
as preferred them to standing, and as early as that a 
class was held weekly at Mr. Fitzgerald's house. 

About the year 1789 Mr. Petheridge, whose son was 
afterward a member of the New Jersey Conference, 
purchased a lot on the east side of Second Street, below 
Catharine, on which to have built a church for the 
down-town Methodists, of whom by this time there 
were very many, and the construction of a brick build- 
ing was at once begun. The lot was forty-two feet 
front by ninety-six feet in depth, and a very substantial 
edifice was erected and completed during the year 1790. 
The building was about thirty feet front by about sixty 
in depth, having an alley-way on each side of it, by 



40 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



which entrance was had to another building in the rear, 
which was subsequently constructed for school purposes. 
This church was for many years known as 

OLD EBEKEZER, 

the prefix " old" having been given to it after the 
congregation had grown to such proportions as to re- 
quire a larger building and of more modern construc- 
tion. This old landmark of early Methodism stood 
some fifteen or twenty feet back from the present house 
line of Second Street, and was permitted to remain until 
about the year 1850, when it was sold to Mr. David H. 
Bowen, who at once proceeded to demolish the greater 
part of it and erect more modern improvements. Three 
stores and dwellings now occupy the ground on which 
Old Ebenezer stood for so many years, but a part of 
the south wall still remains, having been utilized by 
Mr. Bowen in the construction of one of the new houses. 
The church had a gallery on three sides, and was con- 
stantly used for public worship until the year 1818, 
when the "New Ebenezer/' on Christian Street, west 
of Third, was completed. 

The old building that has been swept away by the 
uncompromising hand of progress was the second 
Methodist church in Philadelphia, as it was the first 
church edifice built in that city by the Methodists, al- 
though not constructed Until twenty years after the 
purchase of St. George's. We remember it very well. 
It was an extremely modest and unpretending structure, 
with a peaked front and highly-pitched roof. For 



THE OLD CHURCHES. 



41 



many years after its abandonment for preaching pur- 
poses it was used for the Sunday-schools connected with 
the society, and class meetings. After the construction 
of the new building on Christian Street, the galleries 
of the old were extended across, so as to make it a two- 
storied building. 

Many healthy and highly-profitable meetings were 
had in Old Ebenezer after the building of its more 
modern namesake, and it may not be doubted that in 
its earlier days it was the scene of highly-successful 
oratorical efforts by many of the preachers of the olden 
time, but 

" Few, few are now the strong-arm 'd men 
"Who worshipped at these altars then." 

Here, in that modest little structure, was heard in proc- 
lamation the voice of Joseph Jewell, whose spirit many 
years ago winged its way to realms " where momentary 
ages are no rnore." Here, too, William Penn Chandler, 
whose dust reposes in front of the new building on 
Christian Street, was wont to exhort the people of 
Southwark to u flee from the wrath to come." Within 
those walls were many times heard the silver tones of 
young Creamer, who was taken from his work in the 
very noon of life ; and Everhard, and Potts, and 
Woolson, all of whose dust lies mouldering in some 
part of the grounds attached to the Christian Street 
church, expounded the Word and guided the believers 
from the unpretending rostrum of Old Ebenezer. 

It is greatly to be regretted that these old landmarks 
are passing away so rapidly. They are the footprints 

4* 



42 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



of time that are essential to our remembrance of what 
the fathers endured, that we might grow in the abun- 
dant grace that is necessary to our salvation, even as a 
people. 

" The princely dome, the column, and the arch, 
The sculptur'd marble, and the breathing gold" 

by which they are being supplanted in all sections of 
our country are beautiful to the eye, and most gratify- 
ing to a cultured taste, and we would not condemn 
them ; and yet there would be a manifest propriety in 
retaining at least some of those old-time structures as 
memorials, not only of a past age, but of the origin of 
a life that has grown to most gigantic proportions. 
The time will come in the far-off future, when the 
earnest Methodist would gladly travel hundreds, or 
perhaps thousands, of miles to enjoy the gratification 
of looking upon one of these primitive meeting-houses 
in its original entirety. Millions of dollars have been 
expended and other millions will be in the prosecution 
of archaeological discoveries among the ruins of Pom- 
peii and Herculaneum, and tourists spend months of 
precious time and expend large sums of money for the 
pleasure of gazing on the spot of ground where the 
Cross of Calvary is said to have been planted. 

One by one the landmarks of all our history are 
disappearing, and were it not for the printer's art— 
" the art preservative of all arts" — we should ere long 
be made to forget that we have a history ; and some of 
these days, we suppose, when a new generation has 
taken the place of that now existing, the Vandal hand 



THE OLD CHURCHES. 



43 



of a ruthless if not rude, progress will be lifted for 
the demolishment of the old hall where Liberty was 
born and first proclaimed. What more stately or more 
speaking monument could be reared in commemoration 
of American Methodism than Old St. George's ? Sur- 
round it, if you will, with highly-wrought columns 
and arches ; rear in its front crosses of silver and gold, 
and flank it on the rear with the finest productions of 
modern art and science ; but let the old fortress stand, 
solitary and alone, in its great glory, and it will mark 
a page in the history of Methodism such as no man 
can write. 



CHAPTER V. 



Pioneers of. Methodism — Bethel Colored Church. 

Inasmuch as we have had occasion in preceding 
chapters to recur to the tenacity with which the first 
preachers of Methodism in this country clung to " the 
Established Church," it is worth while to remark upon 
the fact that the material out of which this great or- 
ganization was formed in America was drawn from an 
ialtogether different source, and the same statement is 
true as to the element from which its membership was 
derived in England. The first promulgators and foun- 
ders of organized Methodism in New York were what 
we may style Dutch-Irish. They were descendants of 
the refugees who were compelled to fly from the Rhine 
Palatinates at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 
These persecuted Germans found a temporary asylum 
in England, from whence some of them migrated to 
America, while a number of families were settled, under 
the patronage of the good Queen Anne, in Ireland. 
Mr. Wesley introduced Methodism to these refugees, 
and many of them embraced it cordially, and, in after- 
years, sons and daughters of the fugitive Palatines 
found their way to the New World, settling down for 
the most part in New York city. Philip Embury, 
whom we think was the first man who preached Meth- 
44 



PIONEERS OF METHODISM. 



45 



odism in that city, was a son of one of these Palatine 
families, and had been converted in Ireland under the 
preaching of Mr. Wesley or some one of the preachers 
sent over there by him. So of the Hecks, Paul and 
Barbara, his wife, who was one of the foremost women 
of early Methodism, and the Switzers, Sauses, the 
Taylors, Chaves, Gasners, Schuylers, and a few others 
who were the very earliest of the Methodists in what has 
grown to be " the Empire City." These people had 
been, if anything, before their conversion, Lutherans. 

THE MORAVIANS, 

too, made considerable contribution to the Methodist 
societies as the work progressed, the manner of wor- 
ship and doctrines taught by the Wesleyans seeming 
to be much in sympathy with the ideas of the " United 
Brethren." The element from which the new denomi- 
nation drew supplies in Philadelphia was less marked, 
or rather more diversified, than it was in New York 
at the beginning, the names of the first Philadelphia 
Methodists indicating different nationalities, as, for in- 
stance, the Budds, Haskins, Kelleys, Harveys, Bakers, 
etc. 

Referring to the Moravians, a somewhat remarkable 
circumstance is recalled, namely, that Mr. Wesley him- 
self seems to have been converted .through the teach- 
ings or by inspiration derived from that denomination 
of Christians, and he very frankly acknowledges his 
obligation to the United Brethren for the manifestation 
of Divine grace of which he was made the recipient. 



46 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Mr. Wesley, as will be remembered by some of our 
readers, came to America in 1735 as a missionary to 
the colonists and Indians in Georgia. While in this 
country he became acquainted with some Moravians, 
who, as it appeared, were good Christians, and through 
his intimate association with these he made up his mind 
that he had not yet realized the experience of a con- 
verted man, and in his journal he says : " I went to 
America to convert the Indians, but oh ! who shall 
convert me ?" And he adds : " I have a fair summer 
religion; I can talk well; nay, and believe myself, 
while no danger is near, but let death look me in the 
face, and my spirit is troubled, nor can I say 6 to die is 
gain/ 99 Mr. Wesley returned to England, where he 
renewed and continued association with the u United 
Brethren," and in 1738, as he informs us, at a Mora- 
vian prayer meeting : H I felt my heart strangely 
warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, 
for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he 
had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me 
from the law of death."* 

Wonderful and mysterious working of Providence ! 
For several years the great preacher had been calling 
sinners to repentance and exhorting them to be washed 
in the blood of the Lamb, and only now was he enabled 
to read his own title clear ; but 

" To know ourselves diseased is half our cure.' 7 

* This, as will be observed, was many years before any attempt 
was made to plant Methodism in America as a distinctive de- 
nomination. 



PIONEERS OF METHODISM. 



47 



And so it was with the founder of " this mighty or- 
ganization." 

Right in front of old St. George's church, and be- 
tween the two doors of entrance, are buried the remains 
of 

EZEKIEL COOPER. 

A marble slab covers the grave, and on a tablet of 
the same material, inserted in the wall of the church, 
is inscribed the brief record of his birth and death, with 
other appropriate inscriptions. Mr. Cooper was among 
the earliest of the Methodist ministers in America, and 
we shall not err when we add that he was among the 
most distinguished preachers of his time. He was not 
an orator in the modern sense of that term, nor was he 
celebrated as a stylish preacher; neither could he be 
considered as a particularly eloquent public speaker, 
but he uttered such burning words of truth and sober- 
ness as stole into the hearts of many thousands of men 
and women. Our first recollection of Mr. Cooper is 
when we were a boy, at which time we thought him an 
austere and rather forbidding gentleman, — an impression 
very likely to be made on a youth by a serious, ever- 
thoughtful, and devout personage. 

He was tall and straight as an Indian, his thin and 
whitened locks, as we remember him, straggling over a 
head that was indicative of more than usual intellectual 
power. Making no pretensions to oratory or style, he 
was nevertheless a powerful preacher. A cogent, logi- 
cal reasoner, with great analytical power, he was quali- 
fied in an eminent degree to convince the multitude, 



48 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and was hence a most successful preacher. He had a 
" wen," or external tumor, on his neck, which he sought 
to conceal as well as might be in the folds of an ample 
white cravat, such as was generally worn by the mem- 
bers of the Conference in those days. 

Mr. Cooper was born in Caroline County, Maryland, 
in the year 1763, and entered the ministry as early 
as 1785, when he was about twenty-two years of age. 
His father was an officer in the Revolutionary army, 
and Ezekiel is supposed to have been awakened, when 
a boy, under the preaching of Freeborn Garretson, on 
an occasion when that distinguished Methodist preached 
to the soldiers in Maryland. He was, of course, con- 
temporary with the Wesleys, with Whitefield, Asbury, 
Jesse Lee, and all the Methodist preachers of the olden 
time, and enjoyed the friendship and confidence of the 
founder of the Church during his life. He was a con- 
necting link of the old and the new. His knowledge 
and experience, 

" Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream, 77 

served as an inspiration to the younger members of the 
Conference, and he was looked up to as truly a father 
in Israel, dying in 1847, at the advanced age of eighty- 
four years. Mr. Cooper was styled by those who best 
knew him " a living encyclopaedia of Methodism," and 
what he did not know about its rise, its progress, and its 
condition during his lifetime, was perhaps scarcely worth 
knowing. 

His first field of work was on Long Island, after 



PIONEERS OF METHODISM. 49 

which he travelled the New Jersey circuit, when there 
were but ten Methodist preachers in the Conference of 
that State, and only about twelve hundred members ; 
and when he finished the work of his Master on earth, 
there were thirty thousand Methodists in that State, 
with a membership in the United States that was rapidly 
approximating to a million. 

He was at times during his long and active life Pre- 
siding Elder of the Boston district, book agent, and 
editor of Methodist books, by appointment of the Gen- 
eral Conference. He was a bachelor, and, what is most 
extraordinary, left some five thousand dollars of an es- 
tate. At the time of his death he was considered to be 
the oldest Methodist preacher in the world, and the last 
letter that Mr. Wesley wrote to America is said to have 
been addressed to Ezekiel Cooper.* Many old Meth- 
odists still live in our city who can recall the tones and 
teachings of this old pioneer and patriarch of the Gos- 
pel, and some of them, doubtless, realizing again the 
ponderous but persuasive words by which they were 
brought to a sense of their great need for salvation 
under his preaching, will send up anew thanks and 
praises to the 

" God of our fathers, from out whose hand 
The centuries fall like grains of sand." 

The third Methodist church edifice constructed in 
our city was 

* u Lose no opportunity of declaring to all men that the 

Methodists are one people in all the world, that it is their full 

determination so to continue." — Wesley to Cooper. 
c 5 



50 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



BETHEL, 

on the east side of Sixth Street, above Lombard, where 
the sons and daughters of Africa have been wont to 
worship for more than eighty years. This church, 
however, — as we learn from a sketch of Bethel church, 
by Mr. W. C. Banton, — was not constructed by the 
society of white Methodists. Up to about the year 
1794, the colored Methodists were connected with St. 
George's charge, and if they had separate religious ser- 
vices, which we do not understand to have been the case 
up to that time, the preacher was supplied by St. 
George's; but at about the period mentioned, serious 
disagreements took place between the white and colored 
Methodists, and the latter struck out for themselves, or 
seceded. Mr. Lednum, in his " Rise of Methodism/' 
says : " The next place of worship erected by the Meth- 
odists in this city was for the use of the colored people, 
and was called Bethel," and adds that it was opened in 
1794 ; but the statement is more liberal toward the 
whites than the facts in the case, as we have gathered 
them, would seem to warrant ; beside which, Bethel 
church was not built until the year 1800.* It was 
very shortly after the secession, or what Mr. Banton 
considers the ejectment, of the colored people, that 
" Dickey Allen," as he was familiarly termed in those 
days, purchased the lot where the church now stands. 
Subsequently he bought a frame smith-shop and had it 



* Previous to the year 1800 the Bethel congregation had wor- 
shipped in the old blacksmith-shop. 



BETHEL CHURCH {AFRICAN). 



51 



hauled on to his ground, and in that shanty the colored 
Methodists of the southern section of the city continued 
to worship for six years. The new house, which was 
completed in the year 1800, as may be seen inscribed 
on a tablet that is inserted in the front wall, was built 
with the " smithy" standing inside of it, and when the 
brick structure was completed the smith-shop was taken 
down and carried out in pieces through the front door. 

There would seem to be a good deal of history con- 
nected with the early struggles of the colored Methodists 
that is not found in the books, but it is perhaps not 
worth while to gather it here in detail. It may be re- 
marked, however, that they owe their existence as a 
distinctive organization to Richard Allen, one of their 
own race, who was born a slave in Philadelphia, and 
who purchased his freedom for the sum of one thousand 
dollars. Uneducated, illiterate indeed, and learned only 
from nature, he was rather an extraordinary man for 
his times.* He had great difficulty in keeping his little 
flock together for a while, and at one time, when his 
people voted unanimously in favor of a connection with 
the English or Episcopal Church, Allen stood almost 

* Kichard Allen was born a slave to Benjamin Chew, in Feb- 
ruary, 1760, and was subsequently sold to a Mr. Stokely, of Dela- 
ware. He was converted near Dover, in that State, when about 
twenty years of age. During the Kevolutionary war he was a 
wagon-driver in the army, and after its close began to travel as a 
preacher among the colored people of Delaware, Maryland, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania. At the time of the establishment of 
the Bethel Society he was recognized as a member of Saint 
George's. 



52 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW, 



solitary and alone, but his energy and zeal shortly after- 
ward triumphed. He was the first bishop of " the 
African Methodist Episcopal Church," and was or- 
dained as such in April, 1816, the ordination ceremony 
being by prayer and the laying-on of hands by five 
regularly-ordained ministers, one of them being Absa- 
lom Jones, a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in the Diocese of Pennsylvania.* 

The Bethel church of 1800, although of brick, was 
a very modest affair. We have been in it when it was 
packed, as is said of the theatres, " from pit to dome," 
and we have seen the white boys, who entered not only 
to see what was going on, but to make fun, hustled out 
without ceremony. In 1841 the church was rebuilt, 
and the existing structure is a neat, commodious, and 
well-appointed affair. The membership is stated at 
three hundred and twenty-five, with about twenty-five 
probationers. The African Methodist Episcopal Church 
connection embraced in 1876 a membership of three 
hundred and twenty-five thousand, with about sixteen 
hundred itinerants engaged in the work. 



* This, it will be observed, is an organization distinct from the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, although its doctrines are the same 
and its polity similar. It maintains a book and publishing house 
in Philadelphia, from which is issued the Christian Recorder, 
a weekly paper, B. T. Tanner, Editor. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Divisions of Methodism — The Methodist Protestant Church — 
Free Methodists — Wesleyan Methodists. 

Although we have had occasion in a previous chap- 
ter to remark that Methodism in America has been much 
less disturbed by dissensions and divisions into sub-sects 
than in England, it is proper to notice that it has not 
been altogether free from such contingency. It would 
be singular, indeed, in a country whose teachings are 
so liberal as with us, and where the people are supposed 
to exercise a preponderating influence in the affairs of 
government, if a great denomination like this should 
escape the influence and consequences of an unrest that 
constantly arises in a community whose members feel 
that they are entitled by right to the largest possible 
liberty in the exercise of thought and opinion, if not 
of action; but there is even with the divisions that 
have taken place among Methodists a homogeneousness 
of feeling and sentiment as to the vital principles in- 
volved that is most gratifying. 

There is without doubt much in the practice of 
Methodism of the present day that had no existence a 
hundred years ago, and it may be added, with like truth, 
that much that was seen and felt in the administration 
of its economies and the pursuit of its purposes, when 

5* 53 



54 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



first established, is now wellnigh obsolete. That this 
is so may be a source of regret or otherwise, according 
to the notions, prejudices, or opinions of different indi- 
viduals, but it is probably known to very few persons 
who will read these pages that, notwithstanding the in- 
junction for plainness in dress and habit so persistently 
urged by Mr. Wesley, he nevertheless sought to engraft 
upon the new denomination which he founded a Liturgy 
to be used in the churches by " ministers in black gowns, 
bands, and cassocks/' Such, however, is the force of 
habit, that we need not be surprised to know that the 
originator of Methodism clung to the vestments of the 
" established Church" with something akin to the nat- 
ural love of mankind for home and its traditions. 
There is great force in the couplet from Pomfret that 

" "What education did at first conceive, 
Our ripen 'd eye confirms us to believe." 

Mr. Wesley, as we have already seen, believed very 
much during the first years of his progress which he 
afterwards discarded as non-essential. At the com- 
mencement of work by " the new generation" the use 
of the prayer-book was deemed a necessary appendage 
of public worship, but it was very soon found that the 
preachers in America prayed much better without the 
aid of a book. They could shut their eyes in extempo- 
raneous prayer, and thus pry open the secret recesses 
of the heart, from whence such unction would flow as 
could not possibly be derived from the book. The 
English had not learned the sentiment, language, and 



DIVISIONS OF METHODISM. 



55 



power of an extempore address, which seemed to be a 
natural element in the progress of the New World, and 
even to the present day they have failed to appreciate 
its wonderful superiority over the set phrases that go 
into the books. 

Dr. Lednum reproduces an old anecdote that illus- 
trates the awkward situations that were wont to arise 
occasionally, from a too strict adherence to established 
forms. An unfortunate man had met with an ac- 
cident by which his leg was broken, and in great 
pain he sent for his minister to come and pray with and 
for him. The call was responded to promptly, and, 
opening his book, the priest began a search for the ap- 
propriate collect. He was at first annoyed, then puzzled, 
and finally confounded, when he was convinced that 
no provision had been made in the book of prayer for 
the case of a broken limb, and so he departed without 
addressing the Throne of Grace, leaving the unfortunate 
individual to work out his own salvation " without the 
benefit of clergy." But to return to the divisions of 
Methodism, as experienced in our country. Leaving 
out that which was caused by the discussion of the 
slavery question, resulting in the formation of the 
" Methodist Episcopal Church South," and passing by 
the very natural divergence out of which grew the 
" African Methodist Episcopal Church," the divisions 
or secessions have been quite immaterial when con- 
sidered in relation to numbers. The most considera- 
ble of these secessions is that which resulted in the 
organization of what is now T known as 



56 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



THE METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH, 

a denomination that reported a membership in 1876 
of 113,405, with 12,236 itinerant and local preachers. 
The difficulties which brought about this formation 
occurred in the year 1828, and were probably inspired, 
but certainly intensified, by the publication of the 
Wesley an Repository , which was commenced at Trenton, 
by William S. Stockton, in the year 1820. It is some- 
what difficult to understand what was the original or 
particular cause of complaint that induced this move- 
ment, but it may be safely stated as a general discon- 
tent on the part of certain persons who advocated a 
more liberal or democratic policy in regard to the 
government of the Church. Prominent among the 
reforms proposed by these persons was the adoption 
of lay representation in the Conference. They thought 
that, in the first place, the bishops had too much 
power; and, in the second place, the exclusive right 
of representation by the ministers was anti-republican. 
They objected also to what they considered a very 
manifest departure from the primitive principle upon 
which Methodism had been founded. 

These objectors, with such other disaffected recruits 
as could be gathered, many of whom had been expelled 
on account of their intemperate utterances and revolu- 
tionary actions, organized in 1828 as what they termed 
"the Associate Methodist Reformers." Meanwhile 
another journal in opposition to the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church had been established, entitled The Mutual 



THE METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH. 57 



Rights. In 1828, at a Conference held in Baltimore, 
a " Provisional Church" was established, to which the 
name of "the Associate Methodist Church" was given ; 
and at a General Conference held two years later the 
title was changed to the " Methodist Protestant Church." 

When adopting a constitution and rules for the gov- 
ernment of the new denomination, the general features 
of the old one were maintained ; but the Episcopacy 
and the Presiding Eldership were rejected, and it was 
also provided that, in the General and Annual Confer- 
ences, the representation should be by ministers and lay 
delegates in equal numbers. The articles of religion as 
contained in the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church were adopted, with very slight modification as 
to terms, and most of the general rules that had been 
promulgated by Mr. Wesley were accepted. 

These people seem to have been influenced in their 
conduct by what is termed " a distinction without a 
difference." They denied being seceders, and claimed 
that they were compelled to the course pursued because 
they had been thrust out from the old connection. 

" A something light as air ; a look ; 
A word unkind or wrongly taken," 

was doubtless the original cause of trouble, and 

" Still falling out with this and this, 
And finding something still amiss," 

they nursed what were probably but slight grievances 
until, in their imagination, they grew to be portentous 
evils. There is not much of the Methodist Protestant 

c* 



58 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



element in Philadelphia, and the denomination is, we 
believe, without a single church edifice there. For some 
years they had a church edifice on the north side of 
Filbert Street, above Eleventh, the pastor in charge 
being Mr. Stockton, already referred to. He was a 
sincere and devout Christian, and a gentleman of very 
considerable ability, but, being for many years in very 
precarious health, his preaching was not particularly 
effective. The building referred to is now occupied as 
the Homoeopathic College. 

Nearly twenty years ago, or in the year 1860, there 
was another secession, not of a character, however, to 
attract much attention. It resulted in the organization 
of what is now known as 

THE FREE METHODISTS, 

although for a time the adherents of this new move- 
ment were distinguished as " Nazarites." The griev- 
ances complained of by these people were of a more 
serious nature, involving what were aforetime deemed 
vital principles. They charged and contended that 
there was a marked decline of spirituality in the old 
Church, and that for the sake of gain, such worldly 
practices on the part of the membership as were con- 
trary to the Discipline were tolerated, an indictment 
which is, alas ! too well sustained. They also alleged 
that there was a plain departure in doctrine from the 
teachings of the fathers, and they demanded that u the 
sins of the Church" should be repented of and re- 
formed. They objected to the admission of proba- 



THE WESLEYAN METHODISTS. 



59 



tioners as calculated to adulterate and impair the 
quality of the membership, and, like those who had 
preceded them thirty years previously, they insisted on 
the right to lay representation in the Conference. 

When they came to the work of organization they 
sought to make provision for curing the evils of which 
they complained. They insisted on plain dress and 
address, and that the members should eschew what are 
commonly known as worldly practices, vices, and pleas- 
ures. They forbade connection with secret societies of 
any description, and were evidently reaching to some- 
thing like what was known as the " band system" in 
the very earliest days of Methodism. They prohibited 
the use of intoxicating liquors and of tobacco, and they 
manifestly sought to get as nearly as possible back to 
the old fountain-spring of Methodism. The success 
of this movement, however, has not been of much 
consequence, the membership in 1876 being limited to 
something less than ten thousand, with about four hun- 
dred itinerant and local preachers. 

An earlier movement than this, which took place in 
1843, resulted in the establishment of what is known 
as 

THE WESLEYAN METHODISTS, 

the secession and organization of which grew out of 
the slavery question, which had for some years pre- 
viously been a source of unrest and contention in the 
Conference. The founders of this distinctive denomi- 
nation were mainly Abolitionists in the East and West 
sections of our country, which, at an early period of 



60 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



our history, were noted for opposition to the slaveocracy 
of the South. Although taking form only in 1843, 
the anti-slavery movement in Methodism was begun as 
early as 1839, by the formation of societies in Ohio 
and Michigan, and Utica, N. Y. The preliminary 
meeting, out of which this organization grew, was held 
at Andover, Mass., in February, 1843. This was fol- 
lowed by a formal convention held at Utica, in May of 
the same year, when one hundred and fifty delegates were 
in attendance, and the organization was completed. The 
" Articles of Religion" adopted were mainly the same 
as those of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the 
conditions of membership forbade " slave-holding, buy- 
ing or selling of slaves, or claiming that it is right to 
do so," and also "the manufacturing, buying, or selling 
of intoxicating liquors, except for mechanical, chemical, 
or medicinal purposes connection with secret societies 
is also prohibited. The membership in 1877 is set 
down at something less than twenty thousand. 

Yet one other distinctive element of the denomina- 
tion remains to be noted, — that is, the " Primitive Meth- 
odists," for which is claimed a membership of two thou- 
sand eight hundred, with forty-five itinerant and local 
preachers. We do not understand it as a result of se- 
cession, but rather a sort of spontaneous development, 
such as is constantly taking place among a people who, 
however much wedded to the affairs of this world, are 
ever thoughtful of the performance of those duties that 
will best serve them 

" When life's lame-footed race is o'er." 



CHAPTER VII. 



Another Church for the Colored People — Mission Conferences 
Established — Bishop Asbury and the Negro Punch. 

The fourth church edifice, if such it might be termed, 
provided by the Methodists of the olden time, was for 
the colored people, and was named 

ZOAR. 

The organization of this society and the construction 
of the little church building followed the difficulties 
which, as seen in a previous chapter, culminated in 
the erection of Bethel as an independent establishment, 
and the organization, at a later period, of the African 
Methodist Episcopal Church. The race question was 
thus early a disturbing element, but it was happily dis- 
posed of by the organization of the Zoar society or con- 
gregation, "the color line," however, being thereby more 
distinctly drawn. 

Up to this period the colored people had worshipped 
with the whites at St. George's and Ebenezer, but the 
prejudice of race, supplemented, as was very natural, 
by an occasional assertion of rights claimed by the 
weaker and less intelligent membership, which were, 
perhaps, too frequently denied by the superior race, 
together with what was at the time considered the un- 

6 61 



62 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



fortunate breaking away of the Allen people, was notice 
to the Church that, if the despised race was to be saved 
through the influence and power of Methodism, a new 
line of policy must be adopted ; and it was during the 
year 1794 — the year of the Allen exodus — that a lot 
was purchased on the north side of Brown Street, above 
Fourth, upon which was erected the first Zoar. It was 
a very modest, and, indeed, rather uninviting concern, 
built of wood, and its single room, without adornment of 
any kind, was very much like a barn, but it served the 
purpose for which it was designed very well ; and many 
an old slave, doubtless, in those rude times, there called 
upon God to " come right down now and bress dese 
chillens," and, in the exuberance of his faith, he would 
shout : 

" See de glory gate unbarred — 
"Walk in, darkies, past de guard." 

It was supplied with preachers from St. George's, 
being connected with that " charge," as was Ebenezer 
and others that followed, until the policy of " stationed 
preachers" for the different city churches in the Confer- 
ence was adopted. During the year 1838 the old build- 
ing yielded to the march of improvement, and, being 
taken down, a new structure was erected, which still 
occupies the same ground. At this period the congre- 
gation did not exceed about a hundred ; now the house 
is always full. The Zoar of to-day is a plain but neat 
edifice of brick, with peaked front and high-pitched 
roof, after the style of St. George's and the Old Ebene- 
zer. In a basement are class and Sunday-school rooms, 



ZOAR A FRONTIER STATIC X. 



63 



and to the auditorium are supplemented galleries on 
three sides, the whole giving a seating capacity of about 
one thousand. An organ commensurate to the size of 
the building stands at the south end, and the whole estab- 
lishment is extremely creditable to the colored people. 

When Zoar was first constructed it was what may be 
termed 

A FRONTIER STATION. 

At that period the northern limit of the built-up 
portion of the city was at about what is now Callow- 
hill Street, and then there was a tract of " commons," 
but north of this was a settled district, which was 
called " Camptown," from the fact that a part of the 
army had been encamped there during the war. This 
outside settlement extended east to the Delaware, where 
the ship- and boat-building business was a specialty. 
The market-houses that still stand on Second Street, 
from Coates to Poplar Street, were, for many years 
after the city had filled up to the north and west, 
known as the "Camptown markets," and the first 
church for the colored people was also in Camptown. 
Zoar has served as the nucleus for several other socie- 
ties composed of the sons and daughters of Ham, all 
of which have remained in the connection until the 
present time. These additions are John Wesley, Berian, 
or North Penn, Frankford, and Germantown. 

During 1862 and 1863, while the war for the sup- 
pression of the Rebellion was in progress, Rev. Adam 
Wallace was Presiding Elder of the Snow Hill district 
of the Philadelphia Conference. There was before the 



64 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



war quite a large membership of slaves and free men 
and women of color existing in Maryland and Delaware 
and in the District of Columbia. There was also a 
very considerable rebel element in those States, espec- 
ially in Maryland, albeit they were kept within the 
Union, and the negroes were subjected to great hardship 
and outrage by reason of their consistent loyalty to the 
Government and the Union, the latter of which was due 
to the teachings and testimony of Methodism. They 
were at times dispersed and driven away from their 
meeting- and school-houses, and on several occasions a 
number of their places of worship were burned. Mr. 
Wallace endured many hardships with the colored people 
during that trying period, and he was deeply impressed 
with the necessity for putting them in a more inde- 
pendent and self-reliant position. There were a good 
many good talkers among the colored men who worked 
as local preachers, but they could not be admitted into 
the Conference, and it may be that the white preachers 
were not always anxious to labor among the negroes. 

If the rules of the Conference were changed so that 
colored men could be admitted and assigned to circuits 
it would be found that not one in a hundred, perhaps, 
was qualified for admission according to the require- 
ments of the discipline, and yet they knew quite enough 
to instruct their own race and work as effective preachers. 

The war, with all its successes and reverses, its hard- 
ships and calamities, was breaking in upon the prejudice 
of race that had kept the black man down, and among 
loyal people there was a more general disposition to 



ORGANIZING THE COLORED PEOPLE. 65 

give him a chance. The developments of the war 
brought new wants, better appreciations, and higher 
aspirations, and they asked for a colored pastorate as 
tending to encourage their young men to study and 
preparation to enter the ministerial field. In the 

GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1864, 

which was held in this city, Mr. Wallace was a member 
of the " Committee on the state of the work among the 
people of color," of which Rev. J. McKendree Eeily 
was chairman, and, influenced doubtless by the urgency 
of Mr. Wallace, whose recent experience was of such 
a nature as to enable him to press his views with great 
force, the committee made report to the Conference 
recommending the encouragement of " colored pastor- 
ates for colored people." They said : " If it be a prin- 
ciple patent to Christian enterprise that the mission field 
itself must produce the most effective missionaries, our 
colored local preachers are peculiarly important to us 
at this time. With them properly marshalled," they 
said, " what hindereth that we go down and possess the 
land ?" And they presented a preamble and series of 
resolutions, one of which provided for the organization 
of one or more " Mission Conferences," where, in the 
judgment of the bishops, the exigencies of the work 
may demand it. Methodism had been very successful 
among the slave population of the South, and the re- 
sults of the war were forcing new duties on the Con- 
ference, which, if not promptly performed, would 
probably have caused an exodus to other relations. 

6* 



66 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



The report of the committee, after careful considera- 
tion by the Conference, was adopted and the resolutions 
attached to it were passed, and in pursuance of them 
two Mission Conferences of colored preachers were 
during that year organized, — one entitled the Delaware 
Conference, with designated boundaries, and the other, 
the Washington Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church ; and Zoar and all the other preaching-places for 
colored people in Philadelphia are now known as con- 
stituting in part the Philadelphia district of the Dela- 
ware Conference. These two organizations are composed 
exclusively of colored men. The Conferences hold 
annual sessions, one of the bishops of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church presiding. They are thus wards of 
the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, being, however, subject to the discipline, en- 
tirely independent; and thus a condition of things, 
which must eventually have grown into at least an 
awkward if not a troublesome situation, was happily, 
and, certainly, most beneficially disposed of, and the 
people for so long trodden down under the heel of a 
moral despotism, or ostracized by the prejudice of race, 
send up anthems of praise to the God of their deliver- 
ance. 

The colored people are extremely susceptible to re- 
ligious instruction, and it may not be doubted that this 
measure will be productive of great good, There is 
just now an immense field for cultivation in the South, 
and if it were vigorously worked by Methodist enter- 
prise, the result would be such as to startle the world. 



ASBURY AND THE NEGRO PUNCH. 67 



As an illustration of the immediate effect of preaching 
and prayer among the slaves in the olden time, Bishop 
Asbury was wont to narrate an incident. He was 
travelling on horseback in the State of South Carolina, 
and as he rode along he found a negro sitting on the 
bank of a stream fishing. He was called " Punch," 
and the bishop, then only a preacher, was well enough 
acquainted in the neighborhood to know that the repu- 
tation of the fisher was not of the best. Saluting him, 
he said : " Punch, do you ever pray ?" " No, sir." 
Mr. Asbury got down from his horse, and tying him 
to a sapling, sat down beside the slave and commenced 
to speak kindly and earnestly to him on the subject of 
his souPs salvation. He told him of his sinful condi- 
tion, the danger to him on account thereof, of the day 
of judgment, and the condition of the wicked after 
death. He then pointed him to the goodness and 
mercy of God, and the all-sufficient merit of the atone- 
ment. The negro was greatly impressed, and Mr. As- 
bury sang a hymn and got Punch down on his knees 
and prayed with and for him, just as Asbury could 
pray, and finding the man greatly affected, he encour- 
aged him to pray and not stop till he felt his sins for- 
given, and then left him. 

The preacher having resumed his horse and journey, 
Punch put up his fishing-tackle and set out for his 
cabin. The spirit of grace had already entered his 
soul, and he was intensely awakened. Relating the 
circumstance afterwards he said, " I bin tink fo' I got 
home Punch he gone to hell." He followed the direc- 



G8 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



tions of his instructor, however, and ere long he found 
peace, and not many months later Punch was a preacher 
on the plantation with a following of some two hundred 
slaves, who, through his influence and labors, had been 
brought to a knowledge of salvation by the remission 
of sins through faith in Christ. Twenty-five years 
after the occurrence here related, Punch travelled 
seventy-five miles on foot to Charleston, by permission 
of his master, to see Bishop Asbury, who was filling 
an official appointment in that city. 

Having devoted this chapter thus far to a notice of 
the colored Methodists, it may be as well so to continue 
it to the end. A correspondent has called our attention 
to the fact that Dr. Lednum, in his " Rise of Method- 
ism," states that Bishop Allen, the founder of Bethel 
Church and the African Methodist Episcopal connec- 
tion, was ordained by Bishop White, of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. We were aware of this statement 
by Dr. Lednum, but it is an error, that gentleman 
having probably been led into it by the fact, as stated 
in a previous chapter, that Rev. Absalom Jones, a 
priest of the same church, assisted at the ordination.* 

* There was for several years, as we learn from Mr. Banton's 
history of Bethel Church, much contention between the whites 
and the blacks concerning that society. The presiding elder per- 
sisted in claiming a right to supply the Bethel pulpit, although 
several attempts at negotiation therefor had failed. On one 
occasion, Bev. Mr. Boberts, afterwards one of the bishops of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, being the elder in charge, visited 
Bethel and insisted on preaching there. He was told that he 
could not do so unless he arranged with the trustees, but he re- 



COLORED METHODISTS. 



69 



Jones and Allen were together after the secession of the 
"Allenites" from St. George's, and they voted together 
in favor of continuing as Methodists ; but a very large 
number — nearly all, in fact, of those who had formerly 
worshipped at St. George's — having voted in favor of 
the Episcopalians, Jones went with them and organized 
the St. Thomas congregation, for which a church was 
built on Fifth Street, below Walnut. It was by far 
the pleasanter connection at the time, promising much 
easier work and better facilities for organization and 
building. The Methodists at that period, whether 
white or black, were a poor people, and they doubtless 
realized frequently the stern truth of the quotation : 

" There's an alchemy 
Which changes tender impulse into scorn ; 
The common people call it poverty. 7 } 



plied he would preach on the next Sabbath without regard to 
Kichard Allen or the trustees. "When he entered the church on 
the following Sunday, he found a preacher in the pulpit, and all 
the approaches thereto so barricaded with benches that he could 
not get near it; and saying "that man has taken my appoint- 
ment," he left, and made no further attempt to interfere with 
the "African Methodists." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



O'Kelley's Eebellion — Strawbridge's Independence. 

These "reminiscences," as they may fairly be termed, 
would hardly be complete if we failed to note some oc- 
currences that in the very early stages of the Methodist 
work were thought to threaten serious consequences, if 
not disaster, to the cause ; they were all, however, har- 
monized, or disposed of by such promptness and pru- 
dence of action as was necessary to the establishment 
of what even then promised to be a great organization. 
Among the first manifestations of this nature was what 
we may not inaptly term O'Kelley's rebellion, which 
culminated in the secession of a preacher by that name 
and his friends, say in 1792. Mr. James O'Kelley was 
a prominent and highly successful minister in Virginia, 
who was ordained an elder in 1784, and under the then 
somewhat loosely organized condition of Methodism 
dropped, as it were, into the position of presiding elder 
of his district. He is spoken of as a warm-hearted and 
zealous Christian, possessing, as it would seem, con- 
siderable personal magnetism. He developed much 
influence among the Methodists of his section, and se- 
cured a large personal following. He was evidently 
ambitious, and discovered in his conduct those peculiar 
traits of character which have for a century been con- 
70 




Rev. Francis Asbury. 



* 



O'KELLEY'S REBELLION. 



71 



sidered as indigenous to the soil of the " Old Dominion" 
in its application to or influence on the sentiments and 
conduct of the people of that Commonwealth, not only 
in the olden time but up to the present period. 

Virginians have always had their own peculiar no- 
tions about government and its methods as well as of 
men and things generally, and their " abstractions," as 
developed throughout the years from the Declaration 
of Independence to the secession of " the Confederate 
States," have been a proverb. 

Mr. O'Kelley's unrest and discontent seem to have 
been coeval with the organization of a governing power 
in the Church, for he exhibited a marked, and, indeed, 
bitter hostility to Mr. Asbury, very shortly after that 
gentleman had been invested with the robes of the 
bishopric. In the year 1790, six years after Mr. As- 
bury's ordination, he wrote to him complaining of the 
power he exercised, and called upon him to " halt" in 
his episcopal career, suggesting that if he failed to do 
so he w T ould be constrained to use his influence against 
him; and this he did, writing several letters to Mr. 
Wesley of such a character as to give that gentleman 
great uneasiness of mind, and by various other means 
he sought to impair the influence of the bishop and 
render him, if possible, unpopular among the preachers. 

At this period the formal organization of Methodism 
was in what may be stated as an inchoate condition. It 
was fairly begun, but the crystallization of the work 
was by no means complete. There were several Annual 
Conferences, to which the preachers within their bounds 



72 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



owed and gave allegiance ; but the whole affair was 
much like the infant government of the United States 
before the adoption of the Constitution, lacking the 
cohesive element of power which was essential to secure 
unquestioning obedience. 

THE FIRST COUNCIL. 

In 1789 there was held what was called a Council, 
an organization in the nature of a General Conference, 
but composed of only the bishops and presiding elders. 
Mr. O'Kelley was a member of this body, and was 
understood as being favorable to its construction as a 
governing power, but, failing to impress its members 
with his views, he left it greatly dissatisfied, and from 
that time on he was practically a rebel. Jesse Lee, in 
his history of Methodism, referring to his conduct, says, 
it was thought he went to the Council with expectations 
of being promoted, "and, being disappointed, he re- 
turned home greatly mortified." This is probably an 
exact solution of the matter, for all that is known of 
him proves that he was an aspiring individual. Acting 
with O'Kelley was Beverly Allen, who was expelled 
for immoral conduct. At one time, as we learn, he had 
among his supporters and followers Mr. McKendree, 
then a young man, who was afterward, in 1808, elected 
and ordained as an additional bishop ; but McKendree's 
temporary disaffection arose from misapprehension, or 
rather misrepresentation, concerning Mr. Asbury, from 
which he was immediately cured on meeting with him. 
Even Dr. Coke, one of the two bishops of that day, was 



O'KELLETS REBELLION. 



73 



badly shaken in his loyalty by the specious arguments 
of the agitator, or it may be that he was more alarmed 
by the extent of O'Kelley's following ; for so nervous 
was he at one time in consequence of the disturbance 
that he wrote to Bishop White with a view to suggest 
a union of the Church with the Episcopalians. He 
did this, as he explained afterward, and when he had 
seen his error, because he feared for the stability of the 
Church, — a condition of mind which shows us what 
dangerous traitors are our fears.* 

THE DEMANDS OF THE SECEDEKS. 

Mr. O'Kelley, however, did not only utter complaints. 
He proposed what he considered reforms, and it is but 
fair to say that his propositions were not without merit. 



* Dr. Coke differed from most of his contemporaries who were 
engaged in the American work. Not less devoted to the cause, 
nor by any means less earnest in the promotion of it, he was yet 
less aggressive. He was a man of most amiable disposition, and 
hence naturally averse to strife. Possessed of large means, he 
bore his own expenses, in addition to which he was constantly 
making large expenditures for the benefit of his Master's cause. 
He may very well be styled the father of Methodist missionary 
effort, having died at sea on the voyage to India, where he was 
going for the purpose of installing missionary preachers in that 
country. He cared less for the establishment of a new church 
than he did for the spread of G-od's gospel. In the case of O'Kel- 
ley, Mr. Asbury planted his foot firmly down upon his disloyalty, 
while Dr. Coke, with the kindness of heart for which he was 
noted, and in the spirit of peace which was characteristic of his 
nature, was willing to compromise on methods for the sake of 
what he esteemed the more essential factor of the movement. 
d 7 



74 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



There were five of them, and, transposing the order in 
which we find them written, they were as follows : 

First. The organization of a General Conference, to 
be composed of at least two-thirds of the preachers, 
" as a check on everything." 

Second. The abolition of the " arbitrary aristocracy," 
— meaning thereby, we suppose, the bishops. 

Third. The nomination of presiding elders to be 
vested in the District Conferences. 

Fourth. The limitation of the districts to be vested 
in the General Conference ; and, 

Fifth. Preachers to be allowed an appeal from their 
appointment to stations. 

In the main, these were reasonable propositions, and 
it is a remarkable fact that, with a single exception, — 
namely, the right of appeal, — they have all been since 
substantially adopted. 

But Mr. O'Kelley was restless and, indeed, revolu- 
tionary, and urged his views and reforms with great 
industry meanwhile, until a General Conference was 
called and held in 1792. The calling of this Confer- 
ence, whether looked upon in the light of a concession 
or not, had disposed of one of his demands, and he de- 
termined to make his stand in the Conference on that 
which we have given as the fifth proposition, and he 
presented it in the following shape : 

" That after the bishops appoint the preachers to their 
several circuits, if any one thinks himself aggrieved by 
the appointment, he shall have liberty to appeal to the 
Conference and state his objections, and if the Confer- 



O'KELLETS REBELLION. 



75 



ence approve his objection the bishops shall appoint him 
to another circuit." 

Mr. Lee, in his history, says the debate on this propo- 
sition was a masterly one, and that it called forth the 
strength of all the preachers. The discussion was con- 
tinued for three days, and for much of the time it 
seemed as though there was a majority in favor of the 
proposition. It was urged as a democratic measure, and 
as being in harmony with the republican sentiment on 
which the government of the nation was being built 
up ; but it was made so plainly to appear, on the other 
hand, that with such a provision in the law there could 
be no cohesiveness in the structure that was being 
reared, that when the vote was taken the proposition 
of Mr. O'Kelley was defeated by a large majority; 
whereupon Mr. O'Kelley, and a few others who sup- 
ported him, withdrew from the Conference and the 
connection. This may be stated as the first formal 
secession in Methodism, but the history of the organi- 
zation shows how easy it would have been for the irate 
Virginian to have remained in the connection and had 
his views practically carried out, with a single excep- 
tion, and probably have reached the bishop's bench, 
which would doubtless have satisfied his most darling 
aspiration ; but thus it is that 

" Vaulting ambition overleaps itself." 

Mr. O'Kelley, leaving the Conference, returned to 
his Virginia home, and there he rallied his followers 
for a conflict with the Church which had trusted and 



76 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



honored him and sent him forth as a messenger of 
peace, clothed with the panoply of her authority, and 
shortly afterward he organized what was termed 

THE REPUBLICAN METHODIST CHURCH. 

But it was no longer a difference of opinion as to 
modes and methods. The preacher that had erstwhile 
gone forth to do the work of the Master had fallen 
out with himself, and, as would seem, with his God. 
Passion took the place of reason, hate usurped the 
throne of love, and a vindictive spirit of opposition sup- 
planted the meekness that is required of the messen- 
gers of Christ. The " new generation" of Republican 
Methodists took possession of the preaching-places, and 
drove out all who refused to conform to their plans 
and purposes; and they began a system of persecution, 
and, indeed, outrage, which, in the language of Jesse 
Lee, was "enough to make the saints of God weep 
between the porch and the altar to see how the Lord's 
people were carried away captive by the division." 
Bennett, in his history, referring to Virginia and North 
Carolina, says: u In all this region the influence of 
O'Kelley was very great, and he scrupled not to use 
it to the utmost of his ability to build up his own 
cause." And he adds : " Families were rent asunder, 
brother was opposed to brother, parents and children 
were moved against each other, warm friends became 
open enemies, and the claims of Christian love were 
forgotten in the disputes about Church government." 
In a small way, O'Kel ley's rebellion was a prototype 



STRAWBRIDGE' S DEFECTION. 



77 



of that which sought the destruction of the Union in 
1861, and its end was alike inglorious. It was inspired 
by unworthy motives, and fomented by the will of one 
man, and as he grew old his following fell away. It 
lacked all the ingredients that are essential to success. 
What he undertook to set up was not Methodism, but 
an unreasoning fanaticism, and it perished as do the 
vapors that melt away at the rising of the sun. 

ANOTHER INSTANCE OF DEFECTION, 

which, however, did not assume definite form or shape, 
was that of Strawbridge, who was one of the very 
earliest Methodist preachers in Maryland, and, indeed, 
in America. Robert Strawbridge came to this country 
in the year 1760, probably in company with Embury. 
He was from the same neighborhood in Ireland, and 
was doubtless of the Palatine stock, noticed in a pre- 
vious chapter as having settled in that country in the 
early part of the reign of Queen Anne. He proceeded 
to Maryland shortly after his arrival in this country, 
and settled there with his family, and at once began to 
preach Methodism at his house, and continued to do so 
with great success for several years. It is claimed for 
him that his preaching antedates that at New York 
and Philadelphia, and that he formed a society in Fred- 
erick County as early as 1762. It is also claimed that 
through his exertions a log meeting-house was built on 
Pipe Creek, about a mile from his house, in the year 
1764 or 1765. Strawbridge was a very different sort 
of man from O'Kelley, but he entertained very liberal 

7* 



78 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



notions concerning his rights and responsibility for his 
actions. Without education, he was an earnest and sin- 
cere Christian, and was inclined to acknowledge alle- 
giance only to the Master, and maintained his right to 
administer the baptismal and other ordinances without 
regard to the discipline of the Church. He was an in- 
dependent volunteer preacher of the Methodist doctrine, 
and for a few years was so recognized by the Conference, 
but he refused to give up his right to administer the 
ordinances, and, appreciating his great usefulness, and 
desiring to encourage him, Mr. Asbury proposed to 
make an exception in his case, and allow him to ad- 
minister the ordinances under the direction of an as- 
sistant, but he declined to recognize either the assistant 
or the dictum of the Conference, and his name was there- 
fore dropped; but he continued to preach, nevertheless, 
and a year or two later his name again appeared on the 
minutes of Conference, but he still maintained his 
independence, and during the Revolution, when the 
preachers became scattered, Strawbridge took charge 
of several stations, preaching constantly, but refusing 
to recognize any authority. There was no schism, how- 
ever, nor particular trouble about the matter, and the 
old man died in peace in the year 1781, well satisfied, 
doubtless, that he had done the work of his Master 
and given to heaven many souls. 



CHAPTER IX. 



A Secession from St. George's — Organization of the Academy- 
Society. 

An eminent and graceful writer, in illustration of 
the unrest of mankind and the pernicious methods that 
keep a great portion of the human family in a condition 
that is technically known as " hot water," relates the 
following incident : 

" Many years ago, walking in the sequestered valley 
of the Cumberland (England) with a distinguished au- 
thor, we came to a long and desolate sort of gallery, 
through a wilderness of rocks, which, after narrowing 
and receding for about two miles, suddenly opened 
right and left into a little pastoral recess within the 
very heart of the highest mountain. The verdant cir- 
cus presented in its centre a beautiful but tiny lake, 
with a wild brook issuing from it through the road by 
which we had approached. A few quiet fields were on 
the margin of the hills looking down upon it from 
every side; and finally a bundle of seven cottages, 
clustering together as if for mutual support, in this 
lovely but awful solitude, and here, if anywhere, it 
seemed that a world-wearied man should find a perfect 
rest. 6 Yes,' said our distinguished guide, who had 
guessed our thoughts, 6 Nature has done her part to 
create in this place an absolute and perpetual Sabbath, 

79 



80 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and, doubtless, you conceive that in these low-roofed 
dwellings her intentions are seconded. Be undeceived, 
then. Lawsuits and the passions of lawsuits have 
carried fierce dissensions into this hidden paradise of 
the hills, and it is a fact that not one of these seven 
families will now speak to the other/ " And thus it 
has been from the beginning 

" Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe." 

A FIRE-BRAND IN ST. GEORGE'S. 

It was in the year 1800, only thirty years after the 
banner of the cross had been unfurled in old St. 
George's Church, that a trouble arose among its mem- 
bers. It was not that the society had grown too large 
for the church edifice, or that its capacity had been in 
any degree lessened; but society was progressing all 
around them. Men were leading women to the altar ; 
children were being born into the Church, as it were, 
and graves were being filled with the dead of many 
households, and a moving spirit of enterprise had taken 
possession of a portion of the people. Others of the 
society, as it seems, failed to realize it ; for there were 
" Bourbons" in those days as well as before, and, indeed, 
now. 

Differences of opinion arose and discussion was in- 
augurated, and a controversy ensued, out of which 
grew vexing complications and bitterness, crimination 
and recrimination. Of such a disagreement — -we will 



SECESSION FROM ST. GEORGE'S. 



81 



not term it a feud — most persons to whom the subject 
is presented would like to know, even at a period so 
distant as three-fourths of a century, who was the au- 
thor or the aggressor, and what was specially the cause 
of the strife; but the history of the true inwardness of 
the schism is so sparse as to be no history at all. Dr. 
Lednum, who ought to have met during his lifetime 
some one or more who was a party to the controversy, 
makes no attempt to explain its cause, while Rev. R. 
L. Carson, in a most excellent historical address de- 
livered at the seventy-seventh anniversary of Union 
Church, disposes of that branch of the subject in less 
than three lines.* Enough, however, has been brought 
down to us to show that there was such a division 
among the brethren as could not be harmonized. 
Doubtless, there were, as is so frequently the case, 
faults on both sides, and as the little ball of snow is 
rolled over the carpeted earth, gathering in size and 
volume at each successive turn, so did the disagree- 
ment at St. Geor. e's expand, and become intensified 
until it seemed impracticable for the brethren to longer 
dwell together under the same vine and fig tree in 
peace and harmony ; and hence it was that immediately 
succeeding the year already mentioned the Methodists 
of Philadelphia were brought face to face with the first 
local secession ; remembering all the while, that the 
Allen exodus of the colored people was rather an expul- 
sion and not a matter of their own choice. 

* Services commemorative of the seventy-seventh anniversary 
of the Union Methodist Episcopal Church, May and June, 1878. 



82 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



The tradition which reaches us, and gives the only 
explanation of the cause of the disturbance, is to the 
effect that " it originated in the Board of Trustees 
about repairing the church building." It would be 
more accurate, however, to say that it arose in conse- 
quence of a proposition to complete the church edifice, 
for it is of record that, while galleries were put into 
the building as early as the year 1791, it was not yet 
finished in 1798, when Mr. Asbury met the trustees 
with a view to raise money for that purpose ; but the 
secession movement was not, we are glad to know, 
marked by violence of any kind, nor was it attended 
by any such disreputable proceedings as followed upon 
and became a prominent element in O'Kelley's rebel- 
lion. 

We have no means of knowing at this late day on 
which side of the proposition the parties to the contro- 
versy ranged themselves, whether the seceders were in 
favor of the improvement or opposed to it. It is clear, 
however, that the disagreement had assumed a most 
threatening aspect in so far as the interest of the church 
was concerned. Rev. Joseph Everett was at the time 
presiding elder of the district, and he seems to have 
made himself particularly offensive to the outgoing 
party, and application was made to the Conference for 
his removal ; but we find no notice of this fact on the 
minutes. The journal of Mr. Asbury, however, has 
upon it this statement : 

"Dec. 30, 1800. While in South Carolina I re- 
ceived a letter from the North. I was presented with 



THE OLD ACADEMY. 



83 



a petition from about eighty male members of the so- 
ciety in the City of Brotherly Love, entreating me to 
do what I had no intention of doing, — that was, to re- 
move Brother Everett from the city." 

Rev. Richard Sneath was the preacher in charge at 
St. George's at the time, and, on a Sabbath in the month 
of June, 1801, he announced to the congregation from 
the pulpit that some fifty odd members had withdrawn 
from the church, and he then read the names of the 
seceders, amounting in all to fifty-one. Rev. Charles 
Cavender, an itinerant preacher connected with St. 
George's charge, also joined the retiring members, and 
thus the act of secession was consummated, and forth- 
with the seceders met together and organized an inde- 
pendent society. It may be well imagined that such 
a movement would create much interest and no little 
excitement in the community, and that there would be 
many fears as to its effect on the prospects of the new 
religious organization ; but it was not long before all 
such anxiety was set at rest. 

On the west side of Fourth Street, below Arch, there 
stood at that time a building which was known as 

THE ACADEMY, 

the construction of which was commenced in the year 
1741, under the auspices of that distinguished and, in- 
deed, extraordinary preacher, George Whitefield. It 
was not completed, however, until the year 1744, but 
it is stated by Watson that the great preacher held 
forth from within its walls when they were only about 



84 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 

four feet above the level of the ground. The Academy, 
as its name would indicate, was designed for educational 
purposes, and was built with means raised by subscrip- 
tion, mainly through the influence and exertions of 
Whitefield, but like so many other enterprises of a 
similar nature, especially in the olden time, it was en- 
cumbered with debt. It does not appear in whom the 
title to the property was first vested, but in 1749 it was 
purchased through the instrumentality of Dr. Franklin 
for "the first Academy of Philadelphia," and in 1753 
its name was changed to "The College of Philadelphia," 
and in 1779 it became the corner-stone and foundation 
for the splendid institution of learning, the pride of 
Philadelphia, now known as "The University of Penn- 
sylvania." A remarkable feature, however, in this con- 
nection, is the fact that Whitefield, when parting with 
such right or control as he had in the property, stipu- 
lated that there should be reserved forever the right 
and privilege of occupancy for preaching purposes by 
itinerant Methodist ministers, who, in those days, ac- 
cording to Watson, were termed " New Lights ;" and 
to the north end of the Academy the straying sheep 
from the "old fort" repaired and pitched their tent, 
establishing it permanently as the house of God, and, 
as they hoped to make it, the very gate of heaven. 

LOCATION OF THE SECEDEKS. 

When the scattered flock was gathered, and the new 
society was fully organized, it was found that there 
were about eighty members, the number above that 



AN INDEPENDENT SOCIETY. 



85 



mentioned as withdrawing from St. George's having been 
increased by others that had followed afterward, and 
some who were gathered from the scattered element of 
Methodism which had not taken root in any established 
society. The new organization, which is now known 
as " the Union," does not seem to have taken that dis- 
tinctive name immediately, but in 1810 it took title to 
a portion of the Academy property as the " Methodist 
Episcopal Union Society." At the beginning, and, as 
we shall see, for about a year, the new society was an 
independent Methodist church. It nevertheless ad- 
hered to all the doctrines, usages, and forms of the 
church in which the members had been accustomed 
to worship, continuing to style themselves members of 
the " Methodist Episcopal" Church, although how they 
could have sustained that appellation while being an 
independent body does not appear. 

They commenced operations promptly with four 
preachers, two of whom, Mr. Cavender, already men- 
tioned, and Thomas Haskins, had been in the work as 
itinerants, the other two being local preachers. They 
established four classes with leaders, and chose from 
among the members four stewards, clearly designing in 
all things to follow out as far as they could in their 
altered relation the Wesleyan plan of work ; but their 
independence w T as destined, under God, to be of short 
duration. The membership was composed of many of 
the best men of the mother church, and we can con- 
ceive that they were not as comfortable in their new 
condition as they could wish. Such a breaking away, 

8 



86 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



however justifiable, must have led more or less to es- 
trangements, and out of this would naturally grow 
jealousy, 

" "With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine, 
And feed itself with self-consuming smart." 

All that is known of the men who were prominent 
in this movement proves that no such feeling was de- 
sired, and they doubtless sent up many a prayer for 
such guidance as would restore them to a relation which 
aforetime had been most pleasant, happy, and profitable 
to their souls. 

THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF 1802 

met in Baltimore, and, as may well be supposed, the 
secession movement of the year previous was a subject 
of much concern to all the preachers. Doubtless they 
felt as though they had lost many friends and relations. 
It could not be otherwise when they reflected that 
" Johnny Hood, the sweet singer of Israel," had gone 
out from the mother's bosom, if not in anger, at least 
in sorrow, and Bishop Asbury must have shed many a 
tear when he thought of his dear friend, Lambert Wil- 
mer, and his good wife, to whom he owed so much for 
kind care and attention, wandering away from the old 
hearthstone; and the idea that Dr. Budd, who had 
doubtless prescribed for many of the ministers when 
overtaken by sickness, and North and the Kelleys, and 
Baker and Haskins and Harvey, and many other old 
color-bearers in the church were found there no more, 



RETURNING TO THE FOLD. 



87 



would naturally cause a pang of regret throughout the 
Conference. And so we find that, after reviewing and 
discussing the work in Philadelphia, some one of the 
brethren moved a resolution to this effect : " That the 
Conference advise and recommend Bishops Asbury and 
Whatcoat to offer to our friends who have formed them- 
selves into a religious society, or congregation, in the 
Academy, a stationed preacher, upon such honorable 
terms as they may agree upon." One man in the Con- 
ference, w T hose heart had evidently got into the wrong 
side of his body — for such an occurrence we are told 
has been known — voted no, while every other member 
voted yea. 

In response to this action, which was promptly com- 
municated, the Academy people wrote to the bishops 
that they would receive a preacher from the Conference 
on the following conditions, which were not only just 
and honorable, but which laid the foundation for steps 
of progress in the economies of Methodism which have 
proved most advantageous : 

First. That we be considered as members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, in full connection, and 
put into the full enjoyment of our rights and privileges 
as private and official members, according to the Disci- 
pline thereof, as though we had never separated there- 
from. 

Second. That we be considered as a separate station, 
enjoying our rights and privileges, and as separate and 
distinct from, and having no dependence or connection 
with, other stations in this city. 



88 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



We are quite sure the Conference and the bishops 
were more than glad to accept these propositions ; and, 
accordingly, we find that on the 5th of May the follow- 
ing letter was forwarded in reply : 

" Dear Brethren : We accept your propositions, 
and shall, in our judicious arrangements, provide an 
acceptable preacher for you, in hopes that you will find 
the benefits and blessings and happily increase in grace 
and members. So we wish and pray who are your 
pastors. 

" Your brethren, your servants, for Christ's sake. 

" Francis Asbury, 

" Richard Whatcoat." 

In pursuance of this arrangement Rev. George 
Roberts was appointed as pastor for the reconstructed 
establishment, where he remained during the years 
1802-3, and thus were the secessionists of 1801 brought 
back again into the Methodist Episcopal Church. But, 
harmonized as all differences were, the organization of 
what was for many years known as the Academy So- 
ciety constituted a new development in local Methodism. 
With the seceders went in the main also what there was 
of wealth in the old congregation, and it may not be 
disguised even now that, in some way or other, there 
very shortly grew into existence a very well defined 
line on the field of Philadelphia Methodism, the more 
" respectable" people in the connection, to use a fear- 
fully hackneyed term, — meaning such as have more of 
this world's goods than others, — drifting into the new 



GOOD OUT OF EVIL. 



89 



establishment; but the vacant places in St. George's 
were soon filled up again, and the Master's work went 
on without interruption, until ere long the members of 
both societies had renewed occasion to render up thanks 
to 

" The God who starred the uplifted sky 
And flow 'red the trampled sod" 

for a covenant unto His people, that those who trust in 
Him shall not perish, but inherit eternal life. Bishop 
Asbury, in his journal of the year 1802, mentions that 
he preached for the first time " in the College Church 
or Academy," on Sunday, August 1, his text being 
Exodus xx. 1-24. And he adds, " After sermon we 
had sacrament : we had seriousness and attention." 



8* 



CHAPTER X. 



A New Departure in Local Methodism — St. Thomas's Church 

a Failure. 

The history of the world may be said to be a reflex 
of its creation. From the hour when " God said let 
there be light" until the present moment it has been 
one of advancing progress, and the spirit of man, most 
wonderful of all creations, has sought to climb nearer and 
nearer to the great fountain of intellectual existence and 
power. For centuries, even after the beginning of what 
we term the Christian era, the world moved forward 
under a greatly clouded civilization, marked for much of 
the time by idolatry, licentiousness, tyranny, and perse- 
cution, but there was progress in art, progress in litera- 
ture, and progress in the material elements that conduce 
to the welfare of society, even amid the savagery that 
has disgraced some of the periods of the past. The 
establishment of the Christian Church, however, has, 
without doubt, been the most potent agent of ancient 
and modern civilization, and to the teachings of the 
Church, as reformed by time and experience and on 
its modern basis, are we indebted for the splendid pro- 
gress of the century in which we are living, as well as 
that which immediately preceded it. In the language 
of Channing, " Religion surpasses all other principles 
90 



PROGRESS OF THE NEW SOCIETY. Q\ 



in giving free and manifold action to the mind," and 
the more active, vital, and, indeed, aggressive the 
spirit of a people's religion, the greater will be their 
progress : and thus we find at every step, and pause 
in the consideration, of the great organization which 
had John Wesley for its founder, a spirit, power, and 
breadth of progress that has approximated to the mar- 
vellous. 

The Academy society, whose inauguration we wit- 
nessed in our last chapter, has from the first been largely 
imbued with this quality, and exhibited such a measure 
of enterprise as warranted the suggestion heretofore 
made that the secession of 1800 constituted 

A NEW DEPARTURE IN LOCAL METHODISM. 

The seceding members and those who joined them 
subsequently have ever been ambitious to excel in good 
works, having on one occasion, as was considered from 
the result of the movement, overstepped the bounds of 
prudence, led thereto, however, as we are bound to be- 
lieve, by what may be considered a pardonable ambition 
to take the lead of their contemporaries in pushing for- 
ward the work of Methodism and securing for it a 
greater prestige. 

We have already mentioned that the Academy so- 
ciety obtained title to the ground on which the present 
" Union church" edifice stands in October, 1810, but 
it should be stated also that the purchase thereof, in- 
cluding that portion of the old building in which the 
congregation for many years worshipped, was made for 



92 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and on account of the society as early as April, 1802. 
The portion of " the college" property purchased was 
at the south end of the building and fronted south, 
while the north end of the building fronted east, the 
whole standing back from the street as now; and when 
the southern portion of the building was purchased it 
was conveyed to Messrs. Thomas Allibone, Caleb North, 
and Thomas Haskins, who held the title for the society 
until the date above mentioned. Its cost was nine thou- 
sand dollars, three thousand being paid in cash and a 
mortgage given for the remainder. A portion of this 
original purchase, fronting on Fourth Street, was after- 
ward sold to Adam Konigmacher, and became a part 
of the site on which the Merchants* Hotel now stands, 
an operation which enabled the society to free itself 
from debt and have still left the necessary ground on 
which to erect a new church building. 

The society moved into its new purchase some time 
during the year 1802. It was, of course, a very dif- 
ferent affair from the fine building now known as " the 
Union." It stood in a back yard, as it were ; the 
front, as before remarked, facing south, and overlook- 
ing the back yards of surrounding buildings. It had 
two entrance doors. The size of the building was sev- 
enty feet east and west by forty-five north and south, 
and the pulpit was at the north end of the church. 
Mr. Carson, in his address referred to in our last chap- 
ter, says the membership at this early period seemed to 
be much scattered, and notes the fact that Mr. Wilmer's 
class met at " Centre Square," where the Public Build- 



A MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 



93 



ings are now being erected, while that of John Hewson 
met somewhere in Kensington ; and he mentions also 
that the first recorded marriage was solemnized by Mr. 
Cavender in October, 1801, the parties thereto being 
Joseph Ball and Hester Campbell. 

The north end of the old Academy or College build- 
ing still stands on the original site, a memorial of the 
olden time, but it is necessary that the visitor should 
enter within its walls ere he can recognize the struc- 
ture whose foundation-stone was laid by the celebrated 
Whitefield. Right up against the front of the old 
building, an addition, in which stairways are placed, 
has been erected, with a modern and tasteful front, but 
the old college hall is intact. It is now occupied for 
the manufacture and sale of shoes, thus illustrating 
" To what base uses we come at last." 

WESTWARD THE STAR OF EMPIRE TAKES ITS WAY, 

even to the setting sun, and so the city, now become so 
great and populous, which for many years in the olden 
time hung along the river shore, extending in the main 
only north and south, began after a while to stretch 
away to the west, and with a true missionary spirit the 
brethren of the Academy were inclined to follow and 
advance their lines into the newly-occupied territory, 
and in the year 1813, or thereabout, we find them pur- 
chasing ground on the east side of Tenth Street, below 
Market, with a view to erect there another church edi- 
fice. We have said that the Academy people were am- 
bitious and enterprising; they were something more, 



94 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



for it would seem they desired to cope with St. George's 
and become " a charge" — a mother in Israel, with off- 
spring settled around her in homesteads of her pro- 
viding, and for a time it seemed as though this hope or 
ambition would be realized. 

Dr. Lednum, referring to this subject, says, It was 
about the year 1811 that the heads of the Academy 
society engaged in building a church on Tenth Street, 
between Market and Chestnut, which they called 

st. thomas's ; 

but Mr. Carson, in his anniversary address, thinks " it 
must have been during the first pastorate of Mr. Emory, 
that is to say, 1813-14, that the members of Union 
became ambitious of extending their influence by the 
establishment of a new congregation," and, however it 
may be about the date of the enterprise, it is quite cer- 
tain that at about this period the Academy people con- 
structed the building on Tenth Street, which is now 
known as the Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Ste- 
phen. The new church was opened to public service 
on the 23d of April, 1815, Bishop Asbury preaching 
the dedicatory sermon. It is related in this connection 
that while funds were being raised for the purpose a 
member of the building committee called on Stephen 
Girard and solicited a donation. Mr. Girard, as will 
be remembered, owned the block of ground immediately 
west, extending from Eleventh to Twelfth Street, and, 
although not much of a contributor to church enterprise, 
and entertaining peculiar views on the subject, he con- 



STEPHEN GIRARD AS A GIVER. 



95 



tributed five hundred dollars, which he doubtless did as 
a sort of business investment. 

At about the same time the Sansom Street Baptist 
church, which has been since converted into an exten- 
sive stable, was in course of construction, and Dr. 
Stoughton, the pastor, having heard of Girard's liber- 
ality toward the Methodists, visited him, and solicited 
a subscription to his enterprise. Still having an eye 
to business, doubtless, the merchant and banker gave 
the doctor a check for some two or three hundred dol- 
lars. Mr. Stoughton didn't think that quite the fair 
thing, and he politely remonstrated with the banker, 
saying, " Why, Mr. Girard, how is this, you gave the 
Methodists five hundred dollars, and you give me only 
about one-half?" Mr. Stoughton didn't know his man, 
or he would never have ventured on such an experiment. 
Girard said, "Ah, let me see that again," and receiving 
the check from the hand of the doctor he deliberately 
tore it in pieces, saying, "If you cannot be satisfied 
with what I choose to give, you can go without any- 
thing;" and that was an end of the matter. This 
incident was quite characteristic of Girard. He took 
little interest in churches. Morality and fair dealing 
constituted his religion. He was, however, really a 
charitable person during life, and the magnificence of 
his bequest to the orphaned poor constitutes an im- 
perishable monument to his memory. The gifts noted 
are the more remarkable because of his aversion, not 
to religion, or even churches, but to preachers, whom 
he held responsible for the rival sectarianism which he 



96 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



abhorred, and which induced him to prohibit the en- 
trance of preachers into the college which bears his 
name. In justification of that provision in his will he 
says, " I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any 
sect or person whatsoever, but as there is such a multi- 
tude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion among 
them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans 
who are to derive advantages from this bequest free 
from the excitement which clashing doctrine and secta- 
rian controversy are so apt to produce." 

The new church having been completed and organ- 
ized, two preachers were assigned to the Academy, 
which now came to be " a charge," on the same prin- 
ciple that three or four were appointed to St. George's. 
The first two were Revs. Joseph Lybrand and George 
Sheets, and they preached alternately in the two 
churches. Mr. Lybrand was of an old Philadelphia 
family. He entered the ministry when very young, 
and soon developed marked ability as a pulpit orator. 
He was a person of fine and commanding presence, 
bold in his utterances, eloquent of speech, and enthusi- 
astic and aggressive in the cause of his Master. His 
preaching was of the Whitefield order, but somewhat 
more finished, and his success in winning souls was great. 

The time chosen for the St. Thomas enterprise seems 
to have been inauspicious, and it proved 

A FAILURE. 

The experiment was continued until about the year 
1820, when it seems to have been abandoned, for in 



THE NEW CHURCH SOLD. 



97 



1821 but one preacher was sent to the Academy , and 
in 1823 the church edifice was sold to the Episcopalians. 
It was not, however, the " St. Stephen's" of to-day ; on 
the contrary, notwithstanding what has been said about 
its architectural superiority over all other church 
buildings in the Methodist connection of the time, it 
was a plain and unpretentious structure, presenting to 
view what we have styled the traditional peaked front 
and high-hipped roof. The present front and towers, 
which contain " the chimes of St. Stephen's," are of 
more modern construction, as is the wing, or Bird 
mausoleum, extending to the alley on the north side. 
The enterprise was not only a failure, causing a loss 
of several thousand dollars to the Academy society, but 
it had for awhile the threatening aspect of a really 
dangerous business. It gave rise to jealousy and 
heart-burning among the members, for although not 
to say a grand aifair, it was a better building than the 
old Academy, and it was better finished and furnished, 
and just as surely as human nature is attracted to the 
beautiful, the " upper crust" of the society stole away 
to the new and certainly more cheerful establishment. 

This fact, supplemented, perhaps, as is frequently the 
case under such circumstances, by the putting on of 
" airs" by the St. Thomas portion of the society, quite 
naturally called up the spirit of the unregenerate old 
Adam, and it began to look as though a schism was 
arising that might result in what was most of all to be 
deplored — open hostilities. Dr. Lednum says, "A 
number of the Academy members, entertaining the 

E 9 



98 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



notion that this fine church, as they called it, was built 
to accommodate a few of the most wealthy Methodist 
families, refused to worship in it, and started a prayer- 
meeting, at the same hour fixed for preaching at St. 
Thomas's, in the region of Thirteenth and Vine Streets, 
which was the germ of Nazareth Church." But the 
operation worked badly in other respects. Both 
preachers were not alike acceptable, and something akin 
to partisanship might grow up, indeed, did at one time, 
giving rise to much trouble. During one of the years 
that two ministers were appointed to the Academy, one 
was a much more popular speaker than the other. He 
might not have preached a better sermon, but his style 
of oratory was more fascinating, and, as a consequence, 
at whichever of the two houses he preached, there was 
a huge crowd, while at the other one there were a great 
many empty benches. This was disagreeable to the less 
cultured, or, at least, less popular preacher, and it was 
productive of an unpleasant, and, as was thought, un- 
profitable state of affairs, and the trustees, after being 
much puzzled, determined to experiment on the subject. 

They proposed to Brother that on such morning, 

for instance, as he preached at St. Thomas's, he would 
announce to the congregation that on the following Sab- 
bath morning he would preach the same sermon at the 
Academy, thus giving all an opportunity to judge 
thereof without the trouble of migrating or itinerating 

between the two churches; but Brother failed to 

realize either the philosophy or the utility of the sug- 
gestion, and therefore refused to adopt it. 



UNION METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 99 

For the year 1816-17, Rev. John Emory, who was 
subsequently raised to the bishop's office, and Rev. 
James Ridgway were the pastors in charge, and during 
the following year (1818), under the pastorate of Revs. 
James Smith and John Potts, the society was incorpo- 
rated by act of assembly as 

THE EPISCOPAL METHODIST UNION CHUPCH, 

and thus the legal status of " Academy" was destroyed, 
but the old name clung to the church and congregation 
for many years afterward, and, indeed, is even yet so 
spoken of by many of the old generation of Methodists. 
For several years preceding 1833 there had been some 
quiet discussion concerning the inadequacy of the old 
church building and the necessity for a new one to take 
its place. The congregation, although subjected to con- 
stant draughts as members removed their residences into 
more distant quarters of the city, had greatly increased 
in numbers, and there was for years a real lack of the 
necessary accommodations, besides which, as was most 
natural, the increased prosperity of members and the 
more refined style of living which had followed upon 
the growth and improvement of the city seemed to 
render a more modern style of building a positive need. 
u The official men of Union," as stated by Mr. Carson, 
were " from the beginning men of broad views, of high- 
toned character and of kindly sympathies and at a 
meeting of the male members of the society, held in 
February, 1833, the proposition to construct a new 
house was not only favorably considered, but crystallized 



100 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



into a substantial resolve. The vote on the resolution 
which authorized the trustees to take down the old 
building and erect a new one was taken by yeas and 
nays, and was sixty in the affirmative and fourteen in 
the negative. The work was promptly begun, and in 
a few weeks there remained nothing of the old Academy 
but the debris of the material that, with much labor 
and pains, had been brought together nearly a century 
before, but — 

" They are all passing from the land, 
These churches old and gray, 
In which our fathers used to stand, 
In years gone by, and pray." 

The last closing and formal sermon preached in the 
old house was by Rev. Joseph Holdich, whom we re- 
member with great pleasure as one of the strongest and 
best-cultured of Methodist ministers. His text, taken 
from Isaiah, was, " The place is too strait for me ; 
give place to me that I may dwell," and we may add 
that the sermon was a production worthy of the scholar 
who presented it. The funds necessary for the con- 
struction of the new church were subscribed within a 
month, and on the 13th of April, the old building 
having been demolished, a huge block of stone from it 
was laid at the southwest corner in the foundation, Mr. 
Holdich making an appropriate prayer on that occasion. 

The corner-stone proper for the new structure was 
not laid until the 13th of May, at which time the base- 
ment story of the new edifice had reached the proper 
height. The formal ceremony of laying the corner- 



UNION METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 101 

stone was conducted by Rev. Joseph Rusling, who, 
besides being a most effective preacher, was one of the 
sweet singers of Methodism. The new Union was 
completed and dedicated in December of the same year, 
Rev. Charles Pitman, then pastor in charge, preaching 
the dedicatory sermon, and at this time the membership 
was reported as at eight hundred and twelve. This new 
building caused a sensation in local Methodism, and 
many were the fears lest the brethren would, in the. 
pride of their hearts, forget their religion and their God. 
It was at the time of its completion the finest Methodist 
church in the country, and although plain, and without 
material ornamentation or adornment, its auditorium 
is to-day excelled by very few if any churches in the 
connection. 



0* 



CHAPTER XL 



Two Important General Conferences, 1808-1820 — Three Bishops 

Die. 

There is much, while studying the history of Meth- 
odism, to cause one to linger about the threshold of the 
present organization. One of the most soothing pana- 
ceas to old age, perhaps, is the liberty that is vouchsafed 
to it of dwelling once more, in spirit at least, among 
the scenes and pleasures of youth. The humble old 
homestead, with its roof of thatch, looms up in grateful 
contrast to the brownstone front of later years, and the 
waters of the bubbling spring which we were wont 
to quaff from a horn cup are sweeter in recollection 
than the sparkling wines of Italy or sunny France. 
The old schoolmaster, too, whose tyranny has been mel- 
lowed down into love by Time's philosophy, and the 
apprenticeship, whose task we thought so hard, all rise 
up again in imagination, transformed, as it were, into 
angels, bearing blessings. There is something more 
than this, however, to keep us lingering about the por- 
tals of early Methodism. The tree that is now spread- 
ing its branches across seas, and over continents, drop- 
ping its fruit into the lap of nations, was subjected to 
many vicissitudes and dangers, and there were times 
when its growth and, indeed, its life were seriously 
threatened. 
102 



GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1808. 1Q3 



As has been before remarked in these chapters, the 
construction of the Methodist polity was coeval with 
that of the American government. Having broken 
away from the fiction of the " divine right" of kings, 
and conquered a peace, the American people everywhere 
throughout the land, as is evidenced from the discus- 
sions of the period, were extremely jealous of anything 
like a concentration of power, and the same sentiment 
was found to exist among the Methodists concerning 
their church organization and the power that might be 
created for its government. It was hostility to the 
episcopal function and the power with which it was in- 
vested that gave rise to O'Keiley's rebellion, and it was 
the indisposition to submit to control of any description 
that caused the difficulty with Strawbridge, as referred 
to in a previous chapter, and there was manifestly, in all 
the early Conferences, a careful scrutiny and guarded 
watchfulness by preachers, as to the sources of power 
and the exercise thereof. The republican idea would 
suggest the largest liberty, while the conservative prin- 
ciple would necessarily demand restraints, and to har- 
monize these in ecclesiastical conjunction was a work 
requiring great delicacy, forbearance, and, at the same 
time, decision. It was with the Methodist Church the 
same as with the American government. Both were 
new and in a certain sense experimental. During the 
first decade after the peace in 1783 the form of gov- 
ernment for the republic was in the course of construc- 
tion, and the public mind was constantly occupied 
with the subject, critically scanning every movement or 



104 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



proposition that might affect the rights and liberties of 
the people. This was also true as to Methodism, which 
was on trial during these years. Ever and anon the 
structure would be like a reed shaken with a strong 
wind, but the brethren would grasp it firmly with both 
hands, and, watering it perhaps with their tears, steady 
it until the gale would abate, and then through prayer 
and by mutual concessions new and supporting influ- 
ences would be employed for its protection and future 
growth. 

It was in such a condition of the public mind as we 
have indicated, concerning the rights and powers of 
government, that 

A SIGN OF DANGER TO THE CHURCH 

was manifested and developed in the General Confer- 
ence of 1808, which for a time seemed portentous of 
evil to the new organization, threatening indeed a break- 
ing up of the body by a secession of the Eastern and 
Western Conferences. At that time, as now, the pre- 
siding elders were appointed by the bishops, and the 
General Conference was composed of all the ministers 
belonging to the several Annual Conferences. This ar- 
rangement was not satisfactory to some of the preachers. 
From the earliest period there had been more or less of 
unrest concerning the mode of appointing presiding 
elders, but the Eastern and Western Conferences ob- 
jected specially, and strongly, to the construction of 
the General Conference. They complained that they 
were powerless in the body, and that, practically, they 



GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1808. 105 

had no voice in its deliberations, or at least its action ; 
and this was true, in fact, for upon any question the 
preachers of the Philadelphia and the Baltimore Con- 
ferences could outvote the other five, although their 
vote was combined. At the General Conference of 
1804 a proposition had been made to change its char- 
acter to a delegated body, the representatives of the 
several Annual Conferences to be chosen according to a 
fixed ratio. The resolution was voted down, but with 
an understanding that the subject should be presented 
to and discussed in the several Annual Conferences. 
This was done, and of the seven Conferences then 
existing, five had voted in favor of the proposition 
and two against it. There were other measures of 
importance concerning the government of the Church 
brought forward at the Conference of 1808, and we 
think we may say that it was felt that the principle 
of episcopacy was held by such an uncertain tenure 
as to require that it should be supported by every 
possible influence, and the Conference of that year is 
stated as having been one of the most important ever 
held. 

At an early stage of the proceedings a committee of 
two preachers from each Conference was appointed to 
consider and report upon the several questions that had 
been presented. This arrangement gave to the Eastern 
and Western Conferences a majority of the committee, 
and secured to them a favorable report on the propo- 
sition in which they were most interested. The whole 
ground of church polity seems to have been gone over 



106 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and covered by this committee and Conference. Ezekiel 
Cooper, Joshua Soule, who was afterward elected bishop, 
and who went out of the connection with the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South, and David Bruce, who was 
one of the earliest pioneer preachers, were appointed a 
sub-committee, each of whom drew up an outline of 
a report, that of Mr. Soule being finally adopted by the 
general committee and presented to the Conference. 
The report contained a resolution providing for the elec- 
tion of presiding elders, and also one changing the char- 
acter of the Conference to a delegated body, and another 
defining or limiting the powers of the Conference in 
regard to the organic laws of the Church, and especially 
denying any right to change the then existing prin- 
ciple of episcopacy, which, as before remarked, seems 
to have been for quite a number of years held as in 
danger. 

Upon this particular subject Mr. Soule's proposition 
declared that the Conference u shall not change or alter 
any part or rule of our government so as to do away 
episcopacy, or to destroy the plan of our itinerant gen- 
eral superintendency," while that of Mr. Cooper pro- 
vided that "they shall not do away episcopacy or reduce 
our ministry to a presbyterial parity/' There was long- 
continued and earnest discussion on these several propo- 
sitions, and we recall the circumstances of this Confer- 
ence thus minutely that the reader may appreciate the 
delicacy of the situation, and the dangers to which the 
structure of Methodism was exposed. The episcopal 
function especially required most careful treatment, and, 



A DANGEROUS CONTROVERSY. 



107 



indeed, nursing, and it was not for some years after the 
period under consideration that it was settled into the 
distinguished and exalted position that it occupies to- 
day. But this was not the question that 

THREATENED SECESSION. 

Finding that the discussion was taking too wide a 
range, and desiring the Conference to be brought to 
action, Mr. Cooper moved to postpone the consideration 
of the report, so that he might offer a definite propo- 
sition, and this motion having been agreed to, he sub- 
mitted a resolution providing " that each Annual Con- 
ference respectively, without debate, shall annually 
choose by ballot its own presiding elders." This reso- 
lution was under consideration during three days, and 
when the question was taken it was defeated, the vote 
being fifty-two yeas and seventy-three nays. The 
proposition for a Delegated Conference was then intro- 
duced, and after some discussion it was also defeated, 
the vote being fifty-seven in its favor and sixty-four 
against it. This was the rock on which the Conference 
was about to split, and in all probability fall in pieces. 
Murmurs of dissatisfaction and discontent passed from 
one to another after the result of the vote was an- 
nounced, and hurried sentences escaped from the lips 
of the defeated ministers. The clouded brow of the 
Virginian, the frown of the New Englander, and the 
sharp retort of the South Carolinian all indicated 
danger of a storm. Some of the preachers attached 
to the Philadelphia and the Baltimore Conferences 



108 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



became nervous, doubtless feeling already that they 
had exercised their superior power with too little dis- 
cretion. 

The New England preachers left their seats, and 
began to gather up their papers, and, picking up their 
hats, they announced their determination to retire from 
the Conference, which they did. They were followed 
at once by the Western members, but they all left more 
in sorrow than in anger, and the remaining members, 
surveying what might, and probably would, ere long, 
be a wrecked bark, were moved accordingly. The 
brethren who left the room said they did not propose 
or intend to make any trouble in their districts, but 
that their presence here appeared to be entirely useless. 
They were, without doubt, badly treated, and we very 
much fear that the motive which conduced to the action 
of the majority was not a commendable one. Five out 
of the seven Annual Conferences having instructed in 
favor of the delegated system, it ought to have been at 
once ratified, especially as it must have been seen that 
ere long the Conference, under the then existing plan 
of representation, would become so unwieldy as to be 
unmanageable. The majority, however, upon reflec- 
tion, seem to have relented, or, more properly speaking, 
perhaps repented, of their folly. The retiring members 
remained in town until the next day, and Bishops Em- 
ory and McKendree, the latter of whom was elected at 
that session, took the matter in hand with a view to 
harmonize the differences, and so successful were they 
that the seceding members returned to the Conference 



GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1820. 1Q9 

on the next day, when the resolution for a Delegated 
Conference being again submitted, it was agreed to by 
a larger vote in its favor than had before been cast 
against it ; and then the disagreement that was erst so 
portentous of evil seemed but to awaken 

" New beauties, like flowers, that are sweetest when shaken." 
THE MOVEMENT TO ELECT THE PRESIDING ELDERS 

continued for many years to be "a bone of contention." 
It was during all the early years of Methodism a popu- 
lar measure. It was considered more democratic, or re- 
publican, as the reader may please, and hence more in 
conformity with the sentiment of the people and the 
times, and it was a periodical question for discussion at 
each meeting of the general body; and it came up again 
at the Conference of 1820 with more strength than at 
any time before, giving the Conference much trouble. 

At this time there were three bishops in office, 
Messrs. McKendree, George, and Roberts. Bishop 
George was an avowed advocate of the proposed new 
rule, while his colleagues doubted its constitutionality, 
and were hence against it. At this session it was de- 
termined to elect an additional bishop, Mr. McKen- 
dree's health being feeble. The names of Joshua Soule 
and Dr. Bangs were presented, and the former being 
elected, the circumstance was considered as a defeat of 
the proposed new rule, Mr. Soule being very pronounced 
against it. The advocates of the election scheme, how- 
ever, were extremely persistent, and continued their 

10 



110 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



canvass in its favor, and an attempt was finally made to 
get up a compromise, under which the bishops would 
nominate and the preachers elect, and the Conference 
became so much muddled in regard to the matter that, 
through a misunderstanding, many opponents of the 
measure voted for it, and it was carried by a very de- 
cisive vote. 

In consequence of this action Bishop Soule refused 
to accept the office to which he had been elected, and 
declined to be ordained — in fact, resigned; and the 
Conference, having concluded that it had committed a 
blunder which in war is said to be a crime, made haste 
to correct it by passing a resolution suspending the 
operation of the new rule for four years. But there 
was no abatement of the excitement which had grown 
out of the subject, and it continued to be a matter in 
controversy, and the suspended rule hung, like Mo- 
hammed's coffin, between heaven and earth until the 
General Conference of 1828, when, as though it were 
a ghost haunting every step of the Conference, the 
members determined to dispose of it, and, accordingly, 
passed a resolution formally rescinding and repudiating 
what had grown to be an obnoxious measure, although 
untried; Bishop Soule having meanwhile, in 1824, been 
again elected. 

But the church continued to grow and spread its in- 
fluence wonderfully, notwithstanding these controver- 
sies. Three of its bishops died meanwhile, each with 
the harness on his back. Bishop Whatcoat rendered 
up his life to the God who gave it in 1806, and Bishop 



BISHOP ASBURY. 



Ill 



Coke, who spent most of his time in England travel- 
ling, died in 1814, while on the voyage to India, where 
he was going for the purpose of establishing the mis- 
sionary work. Mr. Asbury, whose memory ought to be 
specially dear to Philadelphia Methodists, died in great 
peace, surrounded by friends, at Spottsylvania, Virginia, 
on the 31st of March, 1816, in the seventieth year 
of his age. He was, without doubt, a most remarkable 
man. As preacher, organizer, and administrator he was 
without an equal in the establishment of Methodism in 
America. He had in combination all the qualities ne- 
cessary for pioneering and consummating a great under- 
taking. Childlike in heart, loving and affectionate, he 
was strong as a giant in his faith, and brave as a lion in 
the prosecution of the work of his Master. To no other 
man does American Methodism owe so much as to 
Asbury. With an extremely moderate education, he 
was endowed with extraordinary natural abilities. His 
preaching was powerful and convincing, and his execu- 
tive qualifications were of a superior order. To these 
he added great industry and perseverance, and his en- 
durance was for many years wonderful, and when his 
health and strength of body gave way he caused him- 
self to be carried into the pulpit, and, seated on a table, 
so that he would be raised above the preacher's desk, he 
proclaimed to the last the terrors of the law and the 
promise of the covenant. Modest and unassuming, he 
devoted his life exclusively to the work of the Master, 
and, unlike the fashionable preachers of the present day, 
he refused to receive for his services a dime more than 



112 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



would pay his very moderate expenses. He discarded 
" The train of pride, the impudence of wealth," 

and, if he were to witness the arrogance of the former 
and the display of the latter, as seen in many of the 
Methodist churches of to-day, he would be tempted to 
exclaim : " My God ! my God ! why has this people 
deserted Thee !" 



CHAPTER XII. 



More New Churches — A Great Preacher. 

The movement of Philadelphia Methodism since the 
establishment of the Old Academy Society has been 
steadily progressive, keeping pace in its improvements 
with the growth and extension of the city. Within 
four years after the secession from St. George's hereto- 
fore noticed, a Methodist society was formed within 
what was afterward known as the Kensington district, 
and during the year 1804 the Kensington Methodist 
Episcopal church edifice was erected on the corner of 
what are now known as Richmond and Marlborough 
Streets. For many years this church was known to the 
public only as 

THE OLD BRICK, 

and although the original building has given place to 
a new and greatly more spacious one, the cherished 
name of the past is still applied to it. The Kensington 
district in colonial times was a sort of outlying settle- 
ment or village, like that of Germantown. The locality 
was at a very early period rendered somewhat famous 
by reason of its containing within its boundaries the 
Old Elm, or treaty tree, under which William Penn 
met the Indians and concluded a treaty with them in 
1682. The inhabitants of the neighborhood in the 

10* 113 



114 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



olden time were chiefly engaged in the business of fish- 
ing and boat and ship building, industries which afford 
the means of employment and subsistence to many of 
the people at the present day, and when " the Old Brick" 
was constructed the locality which is now so densely 
populated was but sparsely inhabited. 

Methodism took root in Kensington at a very early 
period after its introduction in the city, for there are 
traditions of its being preached with success under the 
Old Elm Tree and under the sheds along the river shore 
for years previous to the beginning of the present cen- 
tury. One of the classes of the Academy society, that 
led by John Hewson, met somewhere in Kensington, 
and it is quite probable that a class connected with the 
St. George's society met there before any regular 
church organization was effected. The men of the 
olden time in Kensington, and, indeed, the women also, 
were an industrious and hard-working set of people. 
In many cases the former fished at night, and rested and 
slept while their nets were drying in the sun during the 
day, their wives, meanwhile, marketing the produce of 
their industry in " the city." Up to a very late period 
there was a section of the district or neighborhood 
popularly known as " Fishtown but the ship and 
boat building business gave employment for many years 
to large numbers of these hardy workers. If they were 
in those early days untutored, or even uncouth, they were 
yet a sensitive and most susceptible people, and hence, 
likely to take hold quickly on such a presentation of 
the Gospel as would be made by the Methodist preachers, 



THE "OLD BRICK" CHURCH. 



115 



and to be strongly impressed by the prayer-meetings 
which, in so many cases, formed the nucleus of the 
different church organizations that have been built up 
in all parts of our extended country. 

The " Old Brick" was a small building, very plainly 
constructed and furnished after the old and primitive 
style, but it was during the years of its existence the 
scene of many refreshing and greatly profitable revivals. 
It was enlarged within the year 1833, and to some ex- 
tent made to conform to more modern notions, but as 
the old district filled up the congregation increased to 
such an extent as to render a larger house absolutely 
necessary, and in 1854 the cradle of Kensington Meth- 
odism was made to yield to the irresistible demands of 
modern progress, and demolished to make place for the 
present more spacious and commodious edifice, which is 
in point of seating capacity, we believe, the largest 
Methodist church building in Philadelphia, the di- 
mensions of the building being ninety by sixty-five 
feet. 

The population of the city, with its annual increase, 
still continuing, along up to 1820, to crowd as nearly 
as practicable to the river shore, an additional Meth- 
odist church was erected in 1816 on St. John Street, 
near to where the Cohocksink Creek crossed it. This 
society was another offshoot from old mother St. George's, 
and the congregation continued to worship there until 
1850, when they built and removed to anew church on 
Third Street, near Beaver. Meanwhile, preaching had 
been established in Germantown, and at about the be- 



116 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



ginning of the present century a small house of worship 
was erected there, and in 1818 and 1819 Methodist 
meeting-houses were erected in the outlying villages 
of Olney and Holmesburg. 

THE OLD AND THE NEW. 

We would be unmindful of the teachings of the world, 
and indeed all nature, if we failed to appreciate and 
acknowledge that Methodism to-day is vastly different 
from what it was in the beginning. Its principles and 
doctrines are the same, but whether they are considered 
as vital as in the olden time, and whether or not they 
are insisted on and adhered to in practice with the same 
tenacity as of yore, are questions that we will not here 
discuss. If, however, it may not be urged that new 
methods of worship have been introduced and adopted, 
it may at least be asserted with entire safety that the 
style of w r orship has been greatly embellished, and, 
layman as we are, we may perhaps not challenge its 
legitimacy. It will be conceded that the preaching is 
better than of old. It is more intelligent, more learned, 
more cultured, more pleasing, and, in so far as it is 
sincere, earnest, and inspired from on High, it ought to 
be more successful. In the very earlier periods of 
Methodism the preachers were drawn from the humbler 
walks of life. Like the fishermen who followed and 
became the Disciples of the Saviour, they were for the 
most part unlearned, unlettered, and without culture, 
and they preached Christ and Him crucified from the 
depths of the heart, using such language, tropes, and 




Rev. John P. Durbin. 



A GREAT PREACHER. 



117 



figures as were natural to them, or with which they 
might have been inspired ; but as Methodism became 
more " respectable/' more opulent and less "a badge of 
reproach/' a new style of men came into the vineyard 
to work. This was altogether natural and desirable, 
and to-day the means provided by the Church for the 
education of its ministers, and for fitting them for the 
important work in which they are to engage, are such as 
to challenge the admiration of all the people. We re- 
call to memory one of the most distinguished of this 
" new generation'' of preachers. 

REV. JOHN P. DURBIN 

was born during the first year of the present century, 
in Bourbon County, Kentucky. He was the son of 
pious parents, and was converted when he was about 
eighteen years of age. His education up to this period 
was necessarily limited, but he entered the ministry very 
shortly after his conversion, and at once commenced a 
course of hard study. He was licensed to preach before 
he was of age, and, filling his saddle-bags with books, 
he took the field, reading as he travelled, on horseback 
by day, and by the light afforded from the burning of 
pine knots in the cabins of the West where he would 
rest for the night, and afterward attending lectures at 
the Miami University and other colleges he fitted him- 
self for the splendid career which marked his after-life. 

We shall never forget our first impressions of Mr. 
Durbin. We were a lad of sixteen years of age when 
we first had the pleasure to hear him preach. It was 



118 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



at Ebenezer church, on Christian Street. The fame of 
the distinguished orator had already been wide-spread 
athwart the land, and immense numbers crowded into 
the houses wherever and whenever it was announced 
he would preach. We made our start for the church 
at the usual hour, supposing we would be in ample 
time, and so we were for the service, but reaching the 
church we found it packed in every part, and, wedging 
our way through the mass of humanity, we finally suc- 
ceeded in obtaining standing room in the south gallery, 
with the front wall of the building as a support to our 
back. The house, although thus full, was quiet almost 
as the grave. Directly the preacher rose from his seat 
in the pulpit and stepped forward to the reading-desk, 
and taking up the hymn-book, he announced the page 
on which the selection would be found, and pausing 
for a few moments, until the rustling of the leaves 
would cease, he proceeded to read the hymn, and as the 
utterances came forth we felt " that is not he." We 
scanned the pulpit, looking for another preacher who 
might be Mr. Durbin, but the reader of the hymn was 
its sole occupant. We were disappointed, and ventured 
to ask our neighbor " Is that Mr. Durbin ?" and re- 
ceiving an affirmative answer we were more than disap- 
pointed, and involuntarily propounded to ourself the 
query, " Why do such crowds run after such a man ?" 

APPEARANCES DECEPTIVE. 

There was nothing about the preacher to impress one 
favorably. We could distinguish nothing in either the 



REV. JOHN P. DUMB IN. 



119 



form, face, or manner of the man on whom that large 
assemblage was intently gazing that seemed to indicate 
genius or superior ability. To us he looked like the 
traditional North Carolinian, an indolent, careless, and 
rather unkempt individual. ' His face seemed a saffron 
color, and his hair, which was thin, was of a yellowish 
hue, and the cadences of his voice as he lined the hymn 
for the congregation struck our ear as an unpleasant 
drawling sound, for, having been greatly disappo'nted 
from the first, we probably became somewhat hyper- 
critical. There seemed no fire in the eye nor animation 
in the face. 

The singing of the hymn is ended, and the tall form 
of the gentleman in " the altar," who led the congre- 
gation, settles down to a kneeling posture. We had no 
place to kneel, and were hence obliged to maintain our 
position, looking at the preacher as he put forth his 
petition to the Throne of Grace, and directly the voice 
that we had not thought as much as endurable be- 
came more mellow, more pathetic, more sonorous, and 
so earnest in its pleading that it grew to a richness 
of surpassing beauty, and the impression that had so 
troubled us vanished ere the supplication of the great 
preacher had come to an end, and we w T ere in a fair 
condition to listen to the sermon, the eloquence and 
power of which produced such a transition of opinion 
and feeling as brought to mind the experience of an 
old German frau, who was a member of this same 
Ebenezer in its early days. 

The old lady was a stickler for Mr. Wesley's injunc- 



120 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW, 



tion concerning plainness of dress, and practised it in 
her own person. On a certain occasion there was as- 
signed to St. George's charge, with others, a preacher 
who was somewhat dressy. It might have been, for 
aught we know, Brother William Cooper, who would 
sometimes appear in the pulpit in white drill pants, and 
who, we are glad to know, still lives, at an age of more 
than threescore years and ten, to witness the magnifi- 
cence of the structure which he assisted to rear. But 
our German friend was not slow to criticise the attire of 
the new preacher, from whose ministry she thought but 
little good was likely to result. It came his turn again, 
however, to fill the pulpit at Ebenezer, and he was 
probably feeling in just the mood to acquit himself 
well ; and it was not long after he had taken his text 
before he got away into the glories of his subject, and 
showering the rhetoric of the Gospel and its promises 
over his audience like meteors of gold and silver hue, 
the old-fashioned 66 shout," so seldom heard in the city 
churches of the present day, rang out from different 
parts of the house, and the old lady, catching the infec- 
tion, shouted too, exclaiming : " Oh, dere is nutting in 
dress — dere is nutting in dress and so thought we, 
after we had heard Mr. Durbin ; there is nothing in 
appearances, albeit an experience of half a century 
since has made us believe that the world, or most of 
the people in it, think otherwise. 



DURBINS POWER AS A PREACHER. 



121 



durbin's strange power as a preacher. 

There was something very remarkable — we had al- 
most said marvellous — about Dr. Durbin's preaching. 
He was a natural born orator, a production of which 
Methodism has been most prolific. He was a hard 
student, and, having acquired the ancient languages of 
the world, he drew upon the classic lore that was thus 
opened to him with such a prodigal hand as enabled 
him to reach the topmost height of pulpit eloquence 
and power; but there seemed, apart from the advantage 
thus acquired, a magnetic influence about his ministry, 
and especially his preaching, that reminded one con- 
stantly of Kentucky's other great orator and statesman 
— Henry Clay. There was, of course, no similarity of 
appearance or of style. The manner and style of the 
two men were directly opposite, and y£t each possessed 
the same wonderful power over the minds of vast 
multitudes of men and women. There was no effort 
at display about Mr. Durbin; no reaching for applause; 
but there was such an influence about his preaching 
that made it seem like a direct inspiration from on 
High. As Bishop Simpson has said of him, " he held 
his audience by a strange spell." The congregation 
became enchained as though led on by a charmed mys- 
tery, nor could you realize what drew you on. You 
didn't see the speaker half so much as you heard him, 
and this was the mysterious circumstance that those 
who followed him could not understand. The same 
magnetic power that rendered him popular as a preacher 
F 11 



122 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



made him exceptionally successful as an educator. A 
task was easy if 'twere to be learned through him ; and 
so was the preaching of the Word rendered delightful 
if expounded by Durbin. 

In later years we heard Mr. Durbin at St. George's. 
The house was, as usual, packed. The text was from 
2 Peter, hi. 10 : " But the day of the Lord will come 
as a thief in the night ; in which the heavens shall pass 
away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat ; the earth also and the works that 
are therein shall be burned up." 

He proceeded to show how the world would be de- 
stroyed by fire. He pictured, with a word painting 
that was wonderful, the flashing of electricity and the 
rolling of thunder greater than ten thousand parks of 
artillery; and, describing the composition of the planet 
on which we live, and its natural tendency to such a 
destruction, he explained the existence of the consum- 
ing element — in the air, in the mines of the earth, and 
in the waters of the great deep ; and then grasping, as 
it were, the sun, he pictured it as a mass of fire coming 
in contact with the earth, until the vast audience, lean- 
ing forward in their seats, seemed transfixed in a blaze 
of fire, as it hung breathlessly on his words. Nor was 
it anything like the ordinary kind of " hell-fire" sermon 
that is often heard. There was no ranting, no threat- 
ening, no effort to terrorize by exhibiting the damned 
writhing in a lake of liquid fire, but an awe-inspiring 
description of Almighty power and a magnificent por- 
traiture of the elements of the universe. The eyes of 



DURBIN' S POWER AS A PREACHER. 



123 



the speaker, which we had once thought so dull, sparkled 
with a strange light. The form which before was un- 
attractive loomed up like a superior presence as it moved 
quietly from one side to the other of the reading-desk, 
and the voice, not before musical, was simply capti- 
vating. 

Mr. Durbin filled various important positions con- 
nected with the church. He was for several years 
President of Dickinson College, in which position his 
skill and general ability as an educator w T as highly ap- 
preciated. He was at one time editor of the Christian 
Advocate and Journal, and for some years Missionary 
Secretary. He was also during the session of 1831-32 
Chaplain to the Senate of the United States. His life 
was an earnest and a busy one. He travelled some 
two years in Europe, and his observations in the East, 
published many years ago, produced a profound im- 
pression, and dying in the seventy-sixth year of his 
age, his spirit winged its way to 

u A grand immortal sphere 
Beyond this realm of broken ties,' 7 

leaving the name of Durbin inscribed upon the tablet 
of Methodist history as one of its most cherished 
souvenirs. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Origin of Salem Church — An Eccentric and Popular Preacher. 

A peculiar feature about the growth of old Phila- 
delphia was that in several localities there grew up 
what we may term frontier settlements, detached and 
apart from what was understood as " the city." Two 
of these neighborhoods have been referred to in the 
course of these sketches, namely, Camptown and Ken- 
sington, which at a very early period ran into one. If 
the reader will pass through the neighborhood of Thir- 
teenth and Locust and Spruce, and, indeed, down to 
Pine, he will find here and there, isolated, as it were, 
from the rest of the surrounding buildings, an old one 
that represents a long-passed period, probably a hun- 
dred years ago, when a range of open lots or fields 
of grass intervened between them and "the built-up" 
portion of the city. In the northwest, say about Thir- 
teenth and Vine and to Callowhill, there are yet to be 
found like evidences of an old settlement overlooking 
"Bush Hill," as it was when the barbarous spectacle 
of a man hung by the neck was wont to be there ex- 
hibited to gaping thousands of curious people, whose 
morbid sensibilities led them to witness the violent 
killing of a human being according to law.* Farther 

* The locality known as u Bush Hill," which is now entirely 
covered with buildings, was a stretch of high ground beginning 
124 



FRONTIER SETTLEMENTS. 



125 



west, but again south, on the north side of Spruce Street, 
between what in old times was known as Schuylkill 
Fourth and Schuylkill Fifth Streets, was another such 
outlying village, composed of frame buildings, and 
known only as " Goose Town." The inhabitants of 
this settlement were generally brickmakers and team- 
sters who worked about the brickyards w r hich lay 
around the west end of the old city plot, and there 
were until within the last thirty years fields of grass 
intervening between this locality and Broad Street. 

We mention these facts because each of these frontier 
settlements formed the nucleus for a Methodist society 
and church edifice. Salem, Nazareth, and what was 
originally known as the " Brickmakers' church," now 
the Western, all owe their establishment to missionary 
effort in the isolated neighborhoods here named, al- 
though in the case of the latter there were other popu- 
lations to draw from that had been gathered by the coal 
trade on the Schuylkill, and the manufacturing interests 
in the southwestern portion of the old two-mile square 
city. 

Near to Thirteenth and Pine Streets w r as one of the 
small thoroughfares with which the city abounded in the 
olden time, called Salem Alley, on the one side of which 
there was an old shop building that had probably been 
used for a smithy and wheelwright shop. At about the 
year 1810 the brethren of St. George's carried the 
Home Missionary enterprise of that society into this 

at about Seventeenth and Callowhill Streets, and extending north 
and west to the river Schuylkill. 

11* 



126 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



locality, and begun the holding of prayer-meetings in 
the shop on Salem Alley, and meeting with success 
they very soon established it as a preaching station, 
and organized a society to which the name of 

SALEM CHURCH 

was given. Among the colporteurs who were sent out 
from the old mother church, and began operations in 
the alley, was Thomas Hughes, who at once, on the 
formation of the new society, severed his connection 
with St. George's, and was, we think, the leader of the 
first class at Salem; and his nephew, Mr. Thomas Neely, 
who has given a son to the ministry, is among the oldest 
members of the present society. The congregation 
worshipped in the old shop for several years. They 
were generally a poor people, for the most part Irish, 
and, being possessed of not very much of this world's 
goods, they stayed in the alley much longer, perhaps, 
than they otherwise w r ould have done ; but in the year 
1819 they determined not only to better their own con- 
dition, but to put forth new and greater efforts for the 
spread of the Gospel and the conversion of souls 
throughout that neighborhood ; and having purchased 
a lot on the east side of Thirteenth Street, below Spruce, 
they proceeded to erect a church building which should 
be in their judgment commensurate to the increasing 
population of that part of the city and its needs ; and 
before the close of that year they succeeded in erecting 
a neat brick building, which was in style and appear- 
ance according to the then existing order of Methodist 



SALEM METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 127 

church architecture. The building was not to say a 
very large one, but it was ample for the purposes of 
the society, and the entrance to it was reached by as- 
sending high wooden steps. But these steps, according 
to a current incident of the olden time, were not always 
available for the purpose designed. All Methodists of 
thirty years ago will remember something of John 
Newland Maffit, " the sky-rocket preacher," as he was 
frequently termed, who for a few years drew immense 
crowds to listen to his intensely dramatic style of 
preaching. He was sought after by all the churches, 
and on one occasion he was announced to preach in 
" Old Salem," and, as was to be expected, the house was 
packed to its utmost capacity — so much so, indeed, ac- 
cording to the account, that access from the front door 
to the pulpit was perfectly impossible ; and when the 
great preacher, who, by the way, always delayed his 
appearance until the house had been filled, arrived, he 
could not be got through the mass of people that 
blocked the aisles, and he was taken around to the rear 
end of the building and passed through the window 
that was behind the pulpit. 

The Salem people worshipped in the old house on 
Thirteenth Street for more than twenty years, during 
which it was to very many souls the gate of heaven. 
In 1841, the congregation still increasing, ground was 
purchased on the north side of Lombard Street, west 
of Thirteenth, on which to erect a new and more spa- 
cious building, and within that year the " new Salem" 
church was finished. Mr. Maffit was the officiating 



128 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



minister at the dedication of the new church edifice, 
and we are glad to know that the society is now in a 
healthy and flourishing condition. The old building 
on Thirteenth Street was allowed to stand for many 
years after the removal, being used for different pur- 
poses, but it was finally sold to the Presbyterians, and, 
after being occupied by them for a few years, it was 
made to give place to a new and more ornate structure, 
which is now known as the Union Presbyterian church. 
Among the most popular preachers at Salem was 

REV. WILLIAM BARNS, 

who was very extensively and familiarly spoken of by 
Methodists of the olden time as " Billy Barns," and 
who was the first regularly-stationed preacher at that 
church after the severance of " St. George's charge" in 
1835. He had, however, alternated there with others 
when at the same charge in 1825. There were several 
reasons, doubtless, for the great regard in which Mr. 
Barns was always held by that congregation, a promi- 
nent one being his kindred nationality with a very 
large portion of the membership, but his preaching 
was of a style that would necessarily be attractive to 
that people. Like Durbin, to whom we referred in 
our last chapter, although altogether dissimilar in many 
respects, Mr. Barns was an extraordinary man. Born 
in Ireland, of parents in very moderate circumstances, 
he was without much education, and was, before leav- 
ing the " seagirt isle," apprenticed to learn the trade 
of an ornamental painter, to which pursuit the poetry 



Rev. William Barns. 



REV. WILLIAM BARNS. 



129 



of his mind, as developed in after-years, probably di- 
rected him. Arriving in Baltimore in 1811, he fol- 
lowed that business for some time in that city, being 
engaged in painting a sign when the presiding elder 
called upon him, saying there was other and more im- 
portant work for him to do. He was converted in 
August, 1812, and joined the society in the following 
year. He began to preach on a circuit with the pre- 
siding elder in 1816, and was received as a member 
of the Baltimore Conference the following year, 1817, 
and continued in the work until his death, which oc- 
curred in November, 1865. His ministry was pro- 
longed through a period of forty-eight years. 

As a pulpit orator, Mr. Barns was not only excep- 
tional, but unique, and will be best described, perhaps, 
by the designation of an aggressive preacher. His 
style and conduct was earnest and vehement, and he 
was wont to attack the strongholds of the enemy — to 
employ one of his own tropes — with " banners flying 
and drums a-beating." Like all other men of limited 
education who rise to distinction, he was a hard stu- 
dent, and thus had rendered himself particularly strong 
as an exponent or expounder of the " doctrines" of the 
Bible. . His mind was of a metaphysical order, and 
he delighted in the elaboration of abstruse questions 
of theology, psychology, etc., and was a most ready 
controversialist. His power of language was simply 
immense, so great as to frequently border on the 
extravagant. He retained during his whole life so 
much of 



130 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



THE IRISH BROGUE, 

which made his preaching peculiarly characteristic, a 
circumstance, however, to which an affection of the 
throat or nasal organ, with which he was always more 
or less afflicted, might have in some degree contributed. 
He was accustomed to become not only greatly in earn- 
est, but much excited when preaching, and his tropes 
and figures on such occasions would carry the hearer 
from world's end to world's end again, and to the most 
lofty heights of imaginative power. We have seen 
and heard him in such flights of rhetoric, when he 
would rush wildly away to the " highest dome of God's 
celestial temple in the skies," and, portraying the re- 
ward that is reserved for the righteous, he would fly to 
" the blue vault of heaven, where we shall pluck the 
stars as flowers from a garden, and, dressed in garments 
of dazzling light, we shall drink from cups of gold, 
circled with diamonds and rubies, from the pure and 
everlasting springs that circle and flow around and 
over Jehovah's starry throne and coming down from 
such giddy heights he would launch the thunders of 
the law against " the Pope and the devil, and all the 
fiends of hell," with such terrific volume as would 
startle the most irrepressible man or woman in the con- 
gregation. Mr. Barns had from some cause lost his 
hair, and from the time we first knew him he wore a 
wig, and such an one as we always thought greatly dis- 
proportioned to the head, albeit that was ample enough 
to contain the large brain of which he must have been 



ANECDOTES OF BARNS. 131 

possessed, and when preaching under such excitement 
the top covering would shake like an aspen leaf. These 
flights of rhetoric must have been not only heard but 
seen to be appreciated. The peculiar dialect and the 
highly-impressive gesticulation of the speaker are want- 
ing in every attempt at description, for which the most 
graphic word-painting is inadequate. 

Brother Barns, with all his strength of character, 
was eccentric, and there w r ere, during his long minis- 
terial career, many amusing anecdotes concerning him 
current. Mrs. Barns used to say that if she could 
catch his eye when thus intensely excited in preaching, 
she was able to recall and restrain him, possibly through 
something bordering on magnetic influence. On one 
occasion, as we have heard narrated, while stationed at 
Union church, Wilmington, he became greatly excited 
with his subject, and noticing Mrs. Barns' efforts in 
that regard, he exclaimed : u Oh ! you may look, and 
you may look, Mrs. Barns, but the tri-colored flag of 
Methodism, the Bible, the Hymn-Book, and the Disci- 
pline, shall be carried to the front in triumph if it costs 
William Barns his life." Another instance of such fervid 
eccentricity is said to have occurred at Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania. He was accustomed to urge plainness of 
dress and to denounce the frivolities of fashionable life 
and attire as indulged in by many Methodists. Some 
of the brethren, and more likely the sisters, had dis- 
cussed the subject, and in doing so retaliated on the 
preacher on account of his wig, which was, by the 
critics, styled an unnecessary appendage of dress. These 



132 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



criticisms reached Mr. Barns, and, preaching one day 
one of his fiery sermons, he raised his hand over his 
head, exclaiming, "Here is William Barns with his 
wig," and, suiting the action to the word, and grasp- 
ing the wisp of hair and holding it aloft, he continued, 
" And here is William Barns without his wig. How 
do you like him best ?" The effect of such a dramatic 
scene was not only electric but to some extent ludicrous, 
the audience for a few minutes giving way to what 
approximated to boisterous laughter.* 

AS A LOYALIST 

to the government of his adopted country and to the 
Methodist Church, Mr. Barns was profound, but he 
urged the cultivation of charity and courteous conduct 
toward all other denominations. His hostility to the 
Romish Church, however, was boundless. Some of his 
poetic effusions that we have seen, some in manuscript 
and others in print, although not attaining to the highest 
standard of the muse, burn and blaze with patriotic 
ardor. His poetry was like the rough, unhewn rock 
from the mountain base, but it partook of the practically 
energetic strength of mind which made him a power in 
God's ministerial army. Opinions have varied as to 

* "We might relate many other anecdotes that were current 
during the life of Mr. Barns as illustrating his eccentricity. 
Old-time Methodists will readily recall them, while those nar- 
rated above will serve to give the younger reader an idea, if not 
an appreciation, of one of the most original and indeed unique 
preachers that it has been our pleasure to meet. 



BARNS AND PITMAN. 



133 



the merits of Barns as a pulpit orator, for he was more 
or less during life himself a subject of discussion and 
criticism, but his power and success as a preacher of the 
Gospel was universally conceded. We have mentioned 
him as a controversialist, and as such he at times agitated 
the entire Methodist community where he w r ould be 
stationed. In 1825 he was one of the several preachers 
located at " St. George's charge/' officiating alternately 
at that church, Ebenezer, Salem, and Nazareth. One 
of his colleagues in the charge was Rev. Charles Pitman, 
who was in his time also one of the most distinguished 
of the Methodist ministers, and an entirely different 
sort of man from Barns, and during that year there 
grew up what was extensively known among Methodists 
as 

THE PITMAN-BARNS CONTROVERSY. 

As before remarked, the latter w r as a close metaphysi- 
cal student, and his discussions of doctrine were at times 
such as to rather astonish the old-time Methodists. We 
remember very we]l the excitement in the different con- 
gregations resulting from the preaching of these two 
gentlemen, who asserted and maintained different posi- 
tions concerning doctrinal points. When it was ascer- 
tained from "the plan" that Barns would preach at 
either of the churches named, the house would be 
crowded, and so on any other occasion when Pitman 
was to fill the pulpit, albeit the attendance might be 
sparse enough at other times. The point first in contro- 
versy was the subject of sanctifi cation, but, as is ever 
the case, the field of discussion took a much wider range 

12 



134 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



subsequently, and eventuated in the preferment to the 
Conference of a charge of heterodoxy against Barns by 
Mr. Pitman and a local preacher whose name has es- 
caped us. The charge was patiently heard by the Con- 
ference, Bishop George, as we recollect, presiding, and 
each of the parties defended his position with marked 
ability. The bishop was greatly interested in the dis- 
cussion of the subject. The contestants were, perhaps, 
two of as strong men theologically as there were at the 
time in the American connection, and it was manifest 
that the bishop was deeply impressed by the close 
reasoning and the somewhat ponderous, logical presen- 
tation of Mr. Barns. The result of the hearing before 
the Conference was a verdict of " not proven/' and the 
charges were dismissed. At a subsequent period, very 
shortly after this examination doubtless, the three gen- 
tlemen — the Bishop, Pitman, and Barns — were present 
at a camp-meeting in New Jersey, to which the former 
had been specially invited. Barns preached there one 
of his most logical and impressive sermons, and after 
the conclusion of it Bishop George, laying his hand 
impressively on the shoulder of Mr. Pitman, said, "Let 
that man alone." 

Barns taught the doctrine of entire sanctification in 
this life. " Surely," said he, "there is nothing in instan- 
taneous sanctification to stagger our faith or confound our 
reason ; for if Satan had power, through the sin of our 
first parents, to instantaneously efface from their souls 
the image of God, that consisted in righteousness and 
true holiness, we might, therefore, easily believe that, 



BARNS AND PITMAN 



135 



according to the Gospel scheme of salvation in Christ 
Jesus, Omnipotence could instantaneously restore that 
image and enable us to triumph over all moral evil." 
" Sanctification," said he, in another sermon, " implies 
to be saved from sin and to be purified. . . . And as 
sanctification is a Divine work, Jehovah can as effect- 
ually purify the whole soul in a moment as he could 
effect a partial sanctification or accomplish the work by 
slow degrees." 

But it was not upon this proposition alone, as we 
remember or understand, that Mr. Pitman's formal 
charges of heterodoxy were preferred. They embraced 
also the subjects of the Godhead and the Sonship of 
Christ. Barns, who, by the way, preached the same 
doctrine during the whole of his ministry, taught that 
Christ suffered as a man and not as a God, and it 
was upon this point that the prosecutors sought to 
make good the charge of heresy, but we would depart 
from the purpose of this work were we to follow this 
subject farther. Mr. Barns was greatly beloved by 
immense numbers of the Methodist people. He was a 
most laborious and unceasing worker for his Master ; 
was proud of his high calling, and his faith was such 
as would, if possible, remove mountains and dam the 
ocean's flood. He died with the harness on his shoul- 
ders, having preached at Bristol, where he was stationed, 
the day before he was taken ill, and breathed his last at 
the home of Hon. James W. Quiggle, on Walnut Street, 
Philadelphia, to which he was taken when stricken with 
illness on the street. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 



Origin of Nazareth. — Rev. Solomon Higgins. 

Rev. Mr. Carson, in his address delivered at the 
seventy-seventh anniversary of Union Church, said, 
" We are not to imagine that the people of the olden 
time were all saints," and in support of the remark he 
added, "The records, which I have perused with 
much care, prove the contrary, for opposite many names 
there are remarks written which show that there were 
queer people in the church of that day, as at present." 
And to illustrate the fact, he tells us that opposite to 
the name of one dissatisfied brother there is a declara- 
tion that he had " moved to St. George's with certificate 
because the prayer-meeting on Saturday night would 
not be discontinued." It has ever been thus, that there 
are discontented people in all societies and all relations 
of life ; and it requires no stretch of the imagination to 
apply the fact to any or all the churches. 

In the early part of the present century there was an 
old circuit-preacher, who will still be remembered by 
old Methodists, and who was familiarly known as 

FATHER GRUBER. 

He began to preach in the year 1800, and for the greater 
part of fifty years was a circuit-rider. In 1828 he was 
136 



FATHER O RUBER. 



137 



at St. George's, and in 1829 was on Gloucester, New 
Jersey, circuit. He was a quaint, bluff, old-fashioned 
preacher, of whom there are a good many anecdotes 
extant. While he was on the Cumberland, New Jersey, 
circuit, a certain Mr. English, who was a member of 
the church, applied for license to preach, and, after 
examining into the subject, Mr. Gruber concluded that, 
whether or not the aspirant for clerical occupation had 
grace, he at least had not " gifts/' and so the application 
was refused. Mr. English was much dissatisfied, and, 
indeed, indignant that his talents should have been 
thus underestimated, and accordingly supplemented his 
first application by another, in which he stated that for 
fifteen years he had been dissatisfied with the church, 
its government, etc., and therefore demanded a certificate 
of leave. After preaching, Mr. Gruber met the class, 
and after its close introduced Mr. English's matter. 
" Here," said he, " brethren and sisters, is John Eng- 
lish, who has been for fifteen years dissatisfied with the 
Methodist Episcopal Church ; all you who are opposed 
to his withdrawing rise up." Everybody sat still, and, 
turning to the discontented English, he said, " There, 
you're out" Mr. English said, "I would like my 
certificate." To which the preacher replied, " I will 
call and leave it to-morrow." The following day Mr. 
Gruber rode up to the house of Mr. English, and, 
being invited to dismount, replied, " The King's busi- 
ness requires haste ; here is your certificate ;" and rode 
away. Mr. English opened the paper and read as 
follows : 

12* 



138 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



" This certifies that the bearer, John English, has 
been for fifteen years a dissatisfied member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and has withdrawn there- 
from on the day of -, 1832. 

" J. Gruber, Preacher in Charge." 

Mr. English left the connection, and joined the Meth- 
odist Protestant Church, and sought to become a 
preacher of that denomination, but he was there too 
estimated according to his want of ability, and finally 
returned to the parent church, within whose bosom he 
died. 

Mr. Gruber did not suit the people at St. George's, 
nor, as we are compelled to believe, at either of the 
other churches in the " charge," for the bishops were 
asked to send him away, which they did, very much to 
his chagrin. On a Sabbath day, during the session of 
the next year's Conference, he was appointed to preach 
in the old mother church, and he paid his respects to 
the friends who had asked for his removal by asserting 
in his sermon that " there are some people who are so 
proud and ambitious that unless they can be, like the 
first king of Israel, from the shoulders up, higher than 
everybody else they wouldn't come into the house at all, 
but hang about the door." 

THE GERM OF A NEW CHURCH. 

It has already been mentioned in these chapters that 
the construction of what was at the time known as St. 
Thomas's church, on Tenth Street, below Market, by 
some of the old Academy members, gave rise to some 



NAZARETH METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 139 



hostile feeling in the congregation, and that, with a view 
to obstruct the success of the enterprise, some of the 
Academy members commenced the holding of prayer- 
meetings in the neighborhood of Thirteenth and Vine 
Streets, at and during the hours of service at the new 
St. Thomas's church ; and, while there was no formal 
secession, it would seem that the movement was simply 
a repetition of history. These prayer-meetings were 
begun some time during the year 1814. They were 
held at the house of a Mr. Summers, on the west side 
of Thirteenth Street, between Race and Vine. It w r as 
not at all an uncommon thing to hold prayer-meetings 
at private houses in those days, and in the suburbs es- 
pecially this was a frequent occurrence, without any 
reference to the formation of a new society. The meet- 
ings at Summers' house were continued for some months, 
when that gentleman, who owned the property running 
through to Perry Street, proffered the use of its rear 
end to the brethren free of charge for ten years, pro- 
vided they would put a building on it to be used for 
public worship. The offer was promptly accepted and 
a society was formed, and at once the members set to 
work to improve the lot, and in a short time they had 
succeeded in erecting a plain, single-storied frame meet- 
ing-house, fronting on Perry Street. Here the new 
society continued to worship and hold their class and 
prayer-meetings until about the year 1827, the preachers 
for the infant congregation being supplied by St. George's 
charge. In 1827, the ten years' free lease being about 
to expire, the society purchased a lot on the west side 



140 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



of Thirteenth Street, a short distance below Vine, and 
erected thereon a brick building, which was entitled 

NAZARETH. 

It was a very plain structure, the old Methodist style 
of architecture being rigidly observed. 

" No sumptuous chimney-piece of shining stone" 

invited the stranger's gaze or challenged admiration for 
the newly-constructed temple, and yet the members of 
the society were, as they had a right to be, proud of 
their achievement. The ceremonial service connected 
with the laying of the corner-stone was conducted by 
Rev. Samuel Mervine, and to Rev. William Roberts, 
one of the St. George's preachers, the society was greatly 
indebted for efficient service in the enterprise. 

The new society grew with the increasing population 
of the city, and it was not very long before the members 
realized the fact that they had miscalculated their needs. 
The church was too small, and in 1835, or shortly pre- 
vious thereto, it was determined to enlarge or rebuild it, 
and during that year the work was begun and completed. 
Twenty feet east and west were added to the building, 
and the roof and walls were raised, so that a basement 
was arranged for class and Sunday-school rooms. The 
dedication sermon at what was for a time termed " New 
Nazareth" was preached by Rev. Charles Pitman, and 
the first stationed preacher after the dissolution of St. 
George's charge was the Rev. Mr. Roberts, whose ser- 
vices were so valuable to the society in 1827. This 



REV. SOLOMON HIGGINS. 



141 



society has doubtless suffered some loss from removals 
north and west ; but the neighborhood is still densely 
populated, and ought to afford Methodist people enough 
to fill such a church edifice to overflowing. A few, and 
very few, of the Old Guard, who were wont to wake 
the echoes in the old building with songs of praise of 
forty years ago, are still left, notably among whom we 
observe Mr. John W. Huff, who for very many years 
led the congregation in singing, and whose faith in the 
saving power of the Redeemer, at the age of fourscore 
years, is undiminished. 

One of the oldest preachers in the Philadelphia 
Conference, and who was a connecting link of two 
generations of Methodists, was 

REV. SOLOMON HIGGINS, 

whom we were accustomed in early life to esteem as 
one of the most earnest, painstaking, and devoted of 
God's messengers. Mr. Higgins came into the work 
from a State that has contributed a liberal quota to the 
ministerial corps of early Methodism. He was born 
in Talbot County, Maryland, in 1792, shortly after the 
death of Mr. Wesley, and spent the early part of his 
life on the Eastern Shore; and at the age of about 
twenty-two years — say in 1814 — he became a preacher 
of the Gospel. We must repeat as to Mr. Higgins what 
is traditionally true of a large majority of the first 
preachers of Methodism, namely, that his education 
was limited to the somewhat meagre teaching of the 
country schools as they existed at the closing periods 



142 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



of the eighteenth century. He was, however, a man 
of superior mind, which was so improved by self-culture 
as to have given him a prominent position in the min- 
istry. Intellectually, he was much above the usual 
standard of the preachers of his time. His whole life 
was marked by great industry, but as a student of the- 
ology he was successful in a marked degree. With a 
delicate physical organization, his mind was robust and 
capable of great endurance, and he illustrated through 
a long life the capacity of the frailest of vases to con- 
tain the most valuable of precious stones. Mr. Higgins 
was a gentleman of the old school, and by his evenness of 
temper and urbanity of manner towards all with whom 
he was in any way associated rendered himself not 
only a most pleasant companion, but a much-cherished 
friend. He was one of those modest and unobtrusive 
sort of men that one likes to meet in the whirl of this 
busy and, alas ! too reckless life, but of pronounced 
views and opinions, which he was ever ready to main- 
tain by argument and such proofs as were necessary to 
their elucidation and support. As a business man he 
was exceptional among preachers ; methodical and sys- 
tematic, level-headed in reference to the affairs of the 
world, and highly practical in the performance of such 
duties as are requisite to promote the success of the 
temporal elements of church economy. 

As a preacher Mr. Higgins was sound, logical, pre- 
cise, and convincing. He never ranted in the pulpit, 
but dignified it by his presence and the grace of his 
manner; he lacked nothing, however, of the power 



REV. SOLOMON HIGGINS. 



143 



that is derivable from the fervid sources of the imagi- 
nation or the inspiration of heart feeling. His sermons 
were generally analytical and argumentative, but we 
should not class him as " a pulpit orator" in the pop- 
ular sense of that term, for he developed no ambition 
to excel as such, and he was free from the ridiculous 
mannerisms that are contracted by many preachers. 
Old Mr. Gruber, already mentioned as somewhat of a 
character, was much annoyed by such exhibitions, and 
the practice into which many men fall of terminating 
each sentence with an "ah" moved him to absolute 
contempt. An aspiring young preacher, who was in 
the habit of thus supplementing his discourses, once 
wrote to the old gentleman for some advice, and Gru- 
ber, thinking the opportunity a good one, seized upon 
it to administer a rebuke in the most practical way 
possible, and thus answered the ambitious young gen- 
tleman : 

"Dear — ah Brother — ah. When — ah you — ah go — 
ah to preach — ah take care — ah you don't — ah say — 
ah, ah, ah. 

" Yours — ah, 
" Jacob — ah Gruber — ah." 

Ridiculous as this missive was, it is said to have had 
the desired effect, and to have worked a positive cure. 

Early in life the health of Mr. Higgins failed to 
such an extent as obliged him to relinquish circuit 
work, and accepting a position in a business house in 
Philadelphia, he performed duty meanwhile as a local 



144 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW, 



preacher, until the year 1821, when he resumed his re- 
lation to the Conference, after which, for several years, 
he travelled Milford, Talbot, Dover, and Smyrna cir- 
cuits, and in 1827-28 he was stationed at Asbury 
Church, Wilmington. In 1829-30 he was stationed 
at Union, in this city, and having afterward filled ap- 
pointments at Trenton and Newark, New Jersey, he was 
again returned to the Philadelphia Conference, and in 
1835-36 was stationed at Ebenezer. From this time 
to the close of 1841 he was presiding elder of the 
South and North Philadelphia districts, and his effec- 
tive ministry ended with the close of the year 1846, at 
St. John's in this city, after which he took a supernu- 
merary relation, filling various responsible positions in 
connection with the church. 

It was during the pastorate of Mr. Higgins at 
Union Church that a movement was begun and crys- 
tallized by some of the members of that society for 
the establishment of 

THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH IN WEST PHILA- 
DELPHIA, 

to which the name of Asbury was given. It is grati- 
fying to note the fact that, at least, so much has been 
done to perpetuate the name and keep green among 
Philadelphia Methodists the memory of that good old 
pioneer of the Wesleyan movement. It is a name that 
must live while Methodism survives, and yet here flows 

l * The swallowing gulf of dark oblivion." 
What shores are not washed by its tide ? What treas- 



REV. SOLOMON BIGGINS. 



145 



ures of earth are not carried away on its relentless 
bosom ? And how many names of truly great men 
are not submerged by its endless encroachments ? As- 
bury should have at the hands of American Meth- 
odists such a monument of enduring grandeur as would 
challenge the admiration of the worlds 

We have known Methodist ministers who have taken 
a superannuated relation, as did Mr. Higgins in 1864, 
that have become complainingly unhappy during the 
remainder of life, apparently regretful that they had 
spent their best years in the service of God. Mr. 
Higgins was not of this cast or class of men, but, on 
the contrary, it was during his superannuary relation to 
the Conference that he took charge of the much-crip- 
pled affairs of the Philadelphia Methodist Book Con- 
cern, and by his skill, industry, and superior business 
ability rescued it from impending bankruptcy and 
placed it on a firm and solid basis as a successful and 
profitable business enterprise. Although of a frail 
constitution, Mr. Higgins lived to the seventy-sixth 
year of his age, closing a busy and useful life on the 
12th of February, 1867. Everybody who knew Solo- 
mon Higgins held him in high respect, and his col- 
leagues in the ministry loved him. Of him we may 
truthfully say, as did Tickell of Addison : 

" He taught us how to live, and oh ! too high 
The price of knowledge, taught us how to die." 



G 



13 



CHAPTER XV. 



A Controversy out of which grew a New Church. 

As we glance over the field of local Methodism we 
find it steadily pushing its way westward with the 
growth of the city and the increase of population, and 
filling up the gaps that intervened in the somewhat 
irregular progress of what has already grown to be 
a great metropolis. As hitherto noticed, St. John's, 
which was located east of Second Street and near the 
Cohocksink Creek, in 1816, changed its location in 
1850 to Third Street near Beaver, but it was many 
years previous to that date, say in 1831 or 1832, that 
a number of the members of that congregation organ- 
ized a new society, and purchased a church building 
which had been constructed by the Presbyterians on 
the west side of Fifth Street near Green. Fifth Street 
Methodist Episcopal Church first appears on the Con- 
ference records as a station in 1832, with Rev. Joseph 
Rusling as the pastor in charge. 

A NEW AND TROUBLESOME CONTROVERSY. 

It was at about this period, when the Asiatic cholera 
was devastating many portions of the Old World, and 
making rapid strides in its progress to the New, that 
a very important matter in church economy agitated 
146 



MR. COOKMAN'S MOVEMENT IN 1832. 147 



the Methodist congregations of our city and for a time 
caused much serious apprehension as to the effect it 
might have in retarding the progress of the work. The 
Church polity, as framed and established by Mr. Wesley, 
provided for two subordinate administrative bodies in 
a society, namely, trustees and stewards. When the 
Church was organized in this country this provision 
was incorporated in the Discipline, but it had never 
been observed in the case of St. George's charge, where 
the entire administrative and executive power had up 
to this period been exercised by a board of trustees. 
The power and duty of the two boards as defined in 
the Discipline were quite distinct. The trustees were 
to have charge of the church property and manage its 
finances, while the stewards were to " receive and keep 
account of the money or other provision collected for the 
support of the preachers, and apply it as directed by the 
Discipline, and make accurate return of any expendi- 
ture of money, whether to the preachers, the sick, or 
the poor, and to see the needy and distressed in order to 
relieve and comfort them." The stewards were made 
accountable to the Quarterly Conference, which has the 
power to dismiss or change them, and it was provided 
also that there shall be " not less than three nor more 
than four to each circuit or station." These provisions 
are in marked accordance with the very first attempt 
at organization as made by Mr. Wesley, as was seen in 
an early chapter of these sketches, it being the peculiar 
province of the stewards to see that the preachers were 
properly cared for. 



148 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



In the year 1831 the four preachers at St. George's 
were George G. Cookman, who went down in the ill- 
fated steamer President, Francis Hodgson, William 
Cooper, and Levi Stork, with Manning Force as pre- 
siding elder of the district. In 1832, Mr. Force still 
continued in the relation of elder, with the same 
preachers at St. George's, except that Jefferson Lewis 
had taken the place of Mr. Stork. Mr. Cookman, 
and probably his colleagues also, had frequently com- 
plained that they were not adequately provided for by 
the trustees, and finding that matters did not improve, 
Mr. Cookman, who was the preacher in charge,. at a 
quarterly meeting held either in 1831 or 1832, after 
the business of the Conference had been about con- 
cluded, arose in his place, and said, " Mr. Presiding 
Elder, I now nominate for stewards, to be confirmed 
by this Conference, the following brethren at the 
same time announcing the names. The effect of this 
movement in the Conference was much like a peal of 
thunder at noonday. More than sixty years had been 
rolled away into eternity since the foundation of old 
mother St. George's, and "we never had stewards 
before, why should we have them now?" Brother 
Force was, perhaps, not surprised at the proposition, 
because he had, doubtless, been consulted, but the 
preachers, itinerant and local, and " the official mem- 
bers" who assist in constituting a Quarterly Confer- 
ence, were taken all aback, and the trustees, from 
whose hands this movement would wrest much of 
their power, were not only amazed, but indignant, and 



MR. COO KM AN S MOVEMENT IN 1832. 



149 



accordingly they resisted the proposition. "But," said 
Mr. Cookman, " here is the law :" 

THE ORGANIC LAW OF THE CHURCH. 

" It is so written in the Discipline, that every society 
shall have not less than three nor more than four stew- 
ards ;" beside which, said the preacher in charge, it is 
so incorporated in the charter of this particular society, 
and he gave good and sound reasons why the long- 
lapsed law should be vitalized and put into effective 
operation. The presiding elder had nothing to do, of 
course, but receive the nominations and present them 
for confirmation, but the Conference was too much 
surprised and agitated to act upon them at that par- 
ticular meeting, and, as may be well supposed, the 
subject at once became one of controversy in all the 
congregations connected with the charge. 

The members of the several societies divided into 
two parties, one in favor of the trustees, and the other 
of the stewards, and, as the discussion of the subject was 
enlarged, much unpleasant and, indeed, bitter feeling 
was evolved. It is extremely difficult to understand, 
after a lapse of nearly fifty years, even by those who 
are old enough to remember the circumstances, why 
such a question should have produced a controversy. 
Power and authority, however, is sweet to the human 
mind. It is intoxicating, and ever cumulative in its 
purposes; the gentler elements of our nature become 
ossified by its rankling growth. 

In the congregations at St. George's and Ebenezer the 

13* 



150 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 

trustees' party was especially strong, and at the latter 
the aspect of affairs was beginning to assume a seriously- 
threatening character. The stewards, however, had 
taken their places and assumed the duties of the office, 
whether confirmed or not, being resisted, meanwhile, by 
the trustees in various ways. 

THE BISHOPS INTERPOSE. 

It will be readily imagined that such a controversy 
would quite naturally give rise to other questions of 
difference, just as the noxious weeds follow unbidden 
the labors of the husbandman, and finally the bishops 
became alarmed at the outlook, lest the cause of true 
religion might be not only compromised but seriously 
damaged, and Bishop Emory — who, by the way, was a 
most superior executive officer — interposed his influence 
and authority, and, getting together some of the prin- 
cipal combatants, he proposed that the question in con- 
troversy should be submitted to counsel for a legal 
opinion. While the law of the Church on the subject 
was so plain that a " wayfaring man" ought to have 
understood it, passion had so blinded the reasoning 
faculties of the contestants that they could not agree as 
to the validity of a non-used provision, and so the bishop 
suggested the preparation of what the lawyers term " a 
case stated," and a submission of it to three of the most 
learned and distinguished legal gentlemen of the city, 
and this was finally agreed to. The submission, which 
provided that the disputants on either side would abide 
by the decision of the gentlemen named, was drawn by 



IN THE HANDS OF THE LAWYERS. 151 



the bishop. He commenced by reciting that whereas 
the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church pro- 
vides thus and so, and then proceeded to state the dif- 
ferences that had arisen among the members, and reciting 
a desire that the questions in controversy should be 
settled according to legal principles, the parties agreed 
that the matter should be submitted to Messrs. Charles 
Chauncey, Horace Binney, and John Sergeant for an 
opinion and decision, which should be binding upon all 
the parties and constitute a settlement of the contro- 
versy. 

THE LAWYERS SETTLE THE QUESTION. 

It could not, we presume, have required much re- 
search or length of time to enable these eminent mem- 
bers of a bar which was, in those days, an honor to the 
city, to come to a conclusion, for, being altogether disin- 
terested and entirely unaffected by the feeling that had 
grown up in the Church, there was nothing for them to 
consider but the naked legal question, and, as a con- 
sequence, they very shortly rendered their decision 
that, according to the laws of the Church, it was the 
duty of the society to choose a board of stewards who 
should perform such functions as are provided in the 
Discipline, and thus was the trustees' party saved from 
the consequences of their ill-advised and too reckless 
proceedings. 

But it does not always follow that the ending of a 
controversy results in such settlement of the questions 
that were in issue as is productive of absolute peace 



152 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and harmony. The storms by which nature is at times 
convulsed always come to an end, and the passing away 
of the clouds, that were erst so freighted with danger 
and destruction, is followed by a beautiful and, indeed, 
refreshing calm, but all around are seen the evidences of 
the strife in which the elements were engaged. Pros- 
trate buildings in the cities and towns, shattered trees in 
the forests, and a beach strewed with wrecks attest the 
violence of the preceding hour, and so is it with these 
human strifes. The decision of the three lawyers, 
although decisive according to the terms of the sub- 
mission, was far from being so morally. It failed to 
carry the healing balm that is necessary to allay the 
passions of the human heart. The animosities that had 
been engendered among the brethren and the sisters 
would not down at the bidding of the law, and the sting 
of the cross words that had been said during the con- 
tinuance of the discussion still rankled in the hearts of 
many. A principle had been settled and a dead func- 
tion had been brought to life, but there were unburied 
wrecks of feeling scattered all over the field of the late 
conflict. Men who had, as they thought, loved each 
other felt that the sentiment was only an apparition, 
and they wept in secret at the delusion. 

There was no longer the same cordiality among all 
the brethren as before, and the cold side-glance that had, 
in many cases, taken the place of the cheery smile of 
recognition grew more chilly as time wore on, and, 
slight and insufficient as had been the cause, many 
friendships were broken if not utterly destroyed. 



ST. PAUL'S METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 153 



Among the Ebenezer people these manifestations were 
particularly noticeable. That congregation was largely- 
opposed to what they considered an innovation, and 
were strong in support of the pretensions of the trus- 
tees ; and so, some time after the matter had been set- 
tled by the lawyers, a number of the members of that 
society, realizing the altered condition of their relations, 
concluded that they would be more happy under a vine 
whose grapes were less sour, and a fig-tree whose fruit 
had not been made bitter by the contention of human 
strife, and at about the beginning of the year 1833 
some fifty to sixty members of Ebenezer withdrew from 
that society, and after having worshipped for awhile at 
the Commissioners' Hall, Southwark, in the immediate 
shadow of "Old Ebenezer," they organized themselves 
into a new one, which they entitled 

ST. PAULAS METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

At this period there stood on the east side of Fifth 
Street, above Catharine, a small brick church edifice, 
which had been constructed by a society of " Primitive 
Methodists," most of whom were from England. The 
congregation was not a prosperous one, and after having 
struggled for some years it yielded to a sort of " mani- 
fest destiny," and, the " Methodist Protestant Church" 
having been organized in 1830, the little church fell 
into the hands of a society in that connection. This 
new denomination, which, as seen in a previous chapter, 
was the result of a secession from the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, was no more successful than were the 



154 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



"Primitives," and when the St. Paul's people withdrew 
from Ebenezer the " Methodist Protestants" were al- 
ready tiring of their experiment and ready to sell out. 
The location was a very suitable one for the new society, 
and negotiations were at once begun which resulted in 
the purchase of the Fifth Street house. This much 
having been accomplished, application was at once made 
to Conference for recognition, which was promptly ac- 
corded, Rev. William Urie being appointed pastor in 
charge. Mr. Urie was followed by Rev. William A. 
Wiggans, and he by Rev. William Barns. Among 
the original members of St. Paul's, and constituting, 
in part, its first board of trustees, were Messrs. John 
Whiteman, Edmund G. Yard, Isaac Lampleugh, 
Nicholas Toy, Evan Dalrymple, and Joseph Lonton. 

The new society was extremely prosperous and gath- 
ered in new members rapidly, so that in the course of 
two or three years the members were ready to exclaim, 
with Isaiah, " The place is too strait for me," and at 
the beginning of the year 1837 a committee was ap- 
pointed for the purpose of seeking a suitable lot on 
which to build a new church edifice. At this period 
there was on the north side of Catharine Street, above 
Sixth, a large vacant lot belonging to Mr. Paul Beck. 
There was plenty of other vacant ground in the neigh- 
borhood in those days, but this one seemed to strike 
the fancy of the committeemen, and they accordingly 
called on Mr. Beck to inquire the price and terms on 
which the ground could be procured. 



ST. PAUL'S METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 155 
A PRINCELY GIVER. 

Mr. Beck was known to be a generous and liberal- 
hearted man, a circumstance that doubtless influenced 
the committee to prefer his lot, but they were disap- 
pointed when they called on him nevertheless. Having 
stated the object of their visit, Mr. Beck said, " Why, 
gentlemen, Fve been keeping that lot for a church, 
and intended at some time to build one there and give 
it to some good congregation ; but," he added, " I would 
like to know something about you. Give me some 
reference, and, if I find you, as you appear to be, the 
right kind of men, Fll give you the lot and ten thou- 
sand dollars towards building the church." The refer- 
ence was of course promptly given, and it took Mr. Beck 
a very short time to learn the standing of the parties, 
and when they called upon him again he was prompt 
to say that he was ready to make good his promise. At 
his suggestion an agreement was drawn, in which he on 
his part stipulated for the nominal sum of one dollar to 
convey the lot to the society in fee-simple, and to advance 
or contribute the sum already mentioned, in instalments 
of one thousand dollars each as the work on the build- 
ings progressed, and these arrangements having been 
completed the work of construction was at once begun. 

The Methodists at the period we are now referring 
to were not the poor people whom we have had occasion 
to refer to on previous occasions. We remember the 
gentlemen whom w x e have named as men of some sub- 
stance forty years ago, and they prosecuted the work 
in hand with prompt energy, not calling upon their 



156 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 

liberal patron until after they had accomplished con- 
siderable more work than was stipulated for in the 
agreement ; but when they did go they found him 
open-handed. " Why/' said he, " gentlemen, you want 
more than a thousand dollars ; you are getting along 
finely ; take two or three thousand. I have the money, 
and you may as well take it and make yourselves com- 
fortable/' 

Mr. Beck was a Lutheran, although he generally 
worshipped at the Episcopal Church. He was a gen- 
tleman of the old school, who, instead of putting a 
padlock on his pocket or his heart, as do the million- 
naires of the present day, believed and acted on the 
principle that he was the almoner of a God who had 
prospered him beyond his deserving. The new church 
was completed during the year 1837, and, although 
plain and unadorned by the artistic craft of the archi- 
tect, it is yet one of the finest Methodist church edifices 
in Philadelphia. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Kev. John Newland Maffitt. 

" May I perish," said Quintilian, " if the all-pow- 
erful Creator of nature and Architect of this world has 
impressed man with any character which so eminently 
distinguishes him from other animals as the faculty of 
speech." Of course, the great teacher of oratory had 
no intention to confine this sentiment to the mere ability 
of intelligible utterance. On the contrary, he referred 
to the wonderful power of improved, refined, and elo- 
quent speech, by which the passions are roused to fierce 
combat, the soul inspired to deeds of noble daring, and 
the heart melted to tears, — that sort of speech which is 

" Beautiful as Tirza, comely as Jerusalem : 
Terrible as an army with banners." 

It was about the year 1824-25 that there appeared 
in the Methodist pulpits of this country, like a meteor 
or a sparkling flame, one of the most brilliant, imagina- 
tive, and magnetic preachers that has, even to this day, 
ever flourished as a pulpit orator. There have been 
Whitefields, Spurgeons, Cookmans, and Durbins, and 
many other brilliant preachers, but none, perhaps, who 
possessed in an equal degree the power to move and 
carry away masses of men and women as distinguished 
the preaching of John Newland Maffitt. 

14 157 



158 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Mr. Maffitt was an Irishman, born in the city of 
Dublin, in the year 1794, and emigrated to this country 
in the year 1819, in company with a younger brother, 
landing at New York. He was the son of highly-re- 
spectable and somewhat opulent parents, and was well 
educated. Although raised under religious influences, 
he was in early life a devotee of fashion, and gave 
himself up to the blandishments and frivolities of what 
is termed — per courtesy, we presume — the best society. 
He shone as a bright particular star in the ball-rooms 
of his native city, and worshipped at the shrine of the 
painted and powdered beauties of the dramatic stage. 

He was of medium stature, rather undersized, and 
bore upon his shoulders a somewhat remarkable head, 
which presented, in connection with the contour of the 
facial development, something the appearance of an in- 
verted bell, phrenologically, as was thought, indicating 
a very large brain, but practically, suggesting to the 
careful student a closed vessel only partially filled with 
wine. He had what is termed a "harelip," which 
gave to his face a peculiar appearance, and the immense 
crowds of women that followed him from one church 
to another considered him " handsome," if not beauti- 
ful.* He dressed in the most elegant style, observing 

* It may be that men are not competent judges in regard to 
what the other sex consider as beautiful in this regard, but our 
own judgment of Mr. Maffitt is that he was but passably ''good- 
looking." He was slightly deformed, one of his shoulders being 
somewhat higher than the other, and he was "bow-legged," two 
defects which he carefully and scrupulously concealed by having 
his clothing padded. 



REV. JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT. 



159 



the very latest fashion. His hand was small, delicate, 
and soft as that of a woman, and his coal-black hair 
imparted a radiance to his features that rendered them 
attractive in repose and wildly bright when, with im- 
passioned frenzy, he vaulted away in what were really 
extraordinary flights of oratorical display. 

AS A PREACHER, 

Mr. Maffitt was sensational in the highest degree. His 
power of language was wonderful, and his style of 
oratory was dramatic in the extreme. He had evi- 
dently studied the arts of elocution with effect, and he 
drew upon the wealth of Shakspeare with such un- 
sparing hand as rendered him for the time being abso- 
lute master of human impulse. His figures of speech, 
his tropes and metaphors, were twined and fashioned 
with such skill, and delivered with such beauty as to 
captivate the most sluggish mind, and he was able to 
run away with his audience when addressing to it the 
simplest of propositions. A splendid, indeed, a mag- 
nificent, pulpit orator, he was yet not a great preacher. 
He was, as we may say, scientifically magnetic, finished, 
flowery, and dazzling. A scintillating genius, a perfect 
master of rhetoric, 

11 His words seemed oracles. " 

There were plenty of men in the Conference who would 
preach a sounder and more practical sermon, but none 
who could approximate to his style of dressing up and 
presenting a very ordinary thought or idea. As an 



160 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



illustration of this we may note a sermon preached in 
Cincinnati, the circumstances of which are narrated by 
a gentleman who heard it. " He painted," says the 
writer, " in glowing colors the joys of heaven, until it 
seemed as though the whole multitude could scarcely 
refrain from bursting into one united shout of glory. 
' And this/ he exclaimed, ( is to have no end. Oh, 
eternity ! who can comprehend that word ? Why, my 
friends/ said he, * if a little bird were to come from a 
distant planet and to take into its bill one grain of 
sand from the huge mass of the earth, and fly away 
with it, and be gone a thousand years, and then return, 
and take another grain and fly away with it, and be 
gone another thousand years, and so on, every thousand 
years one grain, what ages of ages would be required to 
carry away the earth, with its eight thousand miles of 
diameter ! and yet, this but dimly shadows the meaning 
of the awful word eternity. This task, though requiring 
millions of ages upon millions of ages, would at last 
come to an end, but the punishment of the lost shall 
endure forever/ This is not more than a common- 
place illustration, which presents nothing new, but yet 
the congregation, on that occasion, was moved * to the 
usual wonderful extent; and dramatically stepping 
down from the pulpit, hymn-book in hand, the preacher 
said, c I will now sing a hymn in which the congrega- 
tion will please not join/ He was also a fine singer, 
and, having finished the hymn, mourners were invited 
to the 6 altar/ which was immediately crowded." It 
was during that series of meetings in the Queen City 



REV, JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT. 161 



of the West that one of the hardest cases in the town, 
governed by curiosity, doubtless, made his way to the 
church where Maffitt was preaching in the evening. 
He was an auctioneer of horses, very dissipated and 
profane, and, charmed by the rhetorical flourishes of 
the preacher and the beauty of his descriptions, he, too, 
found his way to the altar, and absolutely left it in the 
belief that he was converted, and, as we are bound to 
believe, for a time, at least, mended his ways ; but it 
was not long ? as it appears, before the devil again as- 
serted his authority over the horse-jockey, and some 
time afterward Maffitt was walking down the street in 
company with a friend, and, encountering the auc- 
tioneer, who was making "worm fence" as he pro- 
ceeded along the sidewalk, the companion of the preacher 
said, " There, Maffitt, is one of your converts," to which 
the latter replied, " Yes, he must be one of mine, for if 
God had converted him he would not be in that con- 
dition." The response, however, was not original with 
Maffitt, for it was borrowed from Whitefield.* 

* It is related in another place that on an occasion when he 
was to preach at Salem Church, in Philadelphia, the house being 
densely crowded, he was passed in through a window at the rear 
end of the building. This dramatic spectacle was also enacted 
at the "Willit Street Church in New York, where a ladder was 
fixed against the rear wall, Maffitt ascending it, and crawling in 
at a window above the pulpit. At that church and on that occa- 
sion, as related to us by a lady who was present, the excitement 
was intense. The sermon was preached for the benefit of a 
charitable fund, perhaps of a missionary character, and Mr. 
Maffitt in the course of an impassioned appeal for contributions, 

14* 



162 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



maffitt's LIFE AND CAREER 

was a subject for much study, It was one of sunshine 
and clouds ; he grovelled in the throes of deep distress 
or revelled in the luxury of popular applause as the 
petted favorite of the hour. Although, as already re- 
marked, a bright and scintillating genius, he was withal, 
as we read him, a whited sepulchre. He was like a 
beautiful yet unbreathing statue; a magnificent painting 
wanting life ; a splendid architectural structure devoid 
of emotion. Many persons refused to believe that he 
had ever truly experienced religion ; and we think there 
is reason enough therefor " on which to hang a doubt." 
Judging him from the experiences as presented by 
himself in his " Tears of Contrition" or " Sketches of 
His Life," his approaches to the throne of mercy were 
dictated by the instinct of fear. His bane was self-love ; 
he was vain as a peacock, and he could not therefore 
be other than what he was, a pampered and greatly- 
spoiled individual.* He was a sort of pyrotechnic 

called upon the ladies to divest themselves of their gold rings and 
neck-chains, and deposit them in the collection-plates, and so 
great was his power over that portion of the audience that very 
many pieces of jewelry, some of them quite costly, were put into 
the plates. 

* As an illustration of the great preacher's vanity, it may be 
stated that, when at the zenith of his fame, before going to the 
church to preach he would repair to his barber in a carriage, and 
having undergone an exquisite tonsorial operation, he would carry 
his hat in his hand, and ride to the church bareheaded, lest the 
elaborate, if not artistic, arrangement of his hair might be dis- 
turbed. 



REV. JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT. 163 



exhalation, and so selfish as to have never let go the 
idolatry of his own person, — a circumstance that must 
necessarily have worked as a consuming fire. He was 
weak and vacillating, and the star that shone for a 
while with such refulgent brightness set in a cloud of 
obscurity. 

Mr. Maffitt was deprived of a father's care at an early 
period in his life, — a circumstance that may have ac- 
counted for much of his vacillating conduct in later 
years. Doctor Sprague, in his "American Pulpit," 
says his mother intended him for a commercial life. 
However this may be, it is certain that he did not enter 
into that business. His father, as we have learned from 
Mr. Vm. H. Elsegood, of Philadelphia,* was what in 
those days was termed a " mercer and tailor," in other 
words, a merchant tailor, and the son learned the same 
business, and had his shop, or store, in Anglesa Street, 
Dublin. 

The same gentleman says he was a superior cutter and 
fitter, and had at one time an extensive run of custom 
from theatrical people, and for a time did an excellent 
business. While thus engaged he wrote a play, which 
was put upon the stage and performed at the Hawkins 
Street Theatre, Dublin. Although Mr. Elsegood wit- 
nessed the performance of the play, in company with 
his friend Maffitt, from the " wings" of the stage, he is 

* Mr. Elsegood, who still lives at the green old age of over 
fourscore years, was an intimate associate of young Maffitt in 
Dublin. He (Mr. E.) was a member of Henry Moore's class at 
City Road Chapel as early as 1802. 



164 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



unable to recollect its name or title. Mr. Maffitt, how- 
ever, was never on the stage as an actor, as has been 
sometimes stated. 

He married rather early in life a beautiful young 
lady, who was a " shop girl" in the store of a Dublin 
corset-maker. The marriage does not seem to have 
been a happy one. The young wife is said to have been 
very fond of theatrical amusements and gay society, and 
the change in the husband's life to the ministry may 
have contributed in some degree to the marital " un- 
pleasantness." Maffitt's efforts to become a preacher in 
Ireland were not very successful. Many of his friends, 
doubtless with a perfectly correct appreciation of the 
fickleness of his nature, opposed his aspirations in that 
direction; but notwithstanding the fact that he met 
with many obstructions, he persisted in his efforts, until 
after awhile he fell sick, and just here, before leaving 
Ireland for this country, his condition and position is 
enveloped in much of mystery. As we learn from his 
own statement, when in bad health and broken in 
spirit, laboring under one of those depressions with 
which he was frequently visited, his brother came to 
him and proposed that together they should emigrate 
to America, and under the impulse of the moment, as it 
were, the voyage was determined on, and leaving wife 
and children to care for themselves as they best could, 
he landed in New York, as previously stated. For a 
time after landing in this country he was lost to the 
world, and probably gained a subsistence by plying the 
needle. After being in New York for some time, the 



REV. JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT. 



165 



brother by whom he was accompanied called on him 
and rallied him from the torpid condition in which he 
seemed to be existing, and suggested and urged that he 
should visit a camp-meeting then being held in Con- 
necticut, and brave the field. He did so, and making 
one of his brilliant oratorical displays, he was imme- 
diately taken by the hand, and in 1822 he joined the 
travelling connection as a member of the New England 
Conference. He continued his connection with that 
Conference until 1831, during which time he travelled 
and preached to immense audiences in various parts of 
the country, and " located" in 1832, and never resumed 
an effective relation afterwards. 

During what we may term his metropolitan itine- 
rancy, he was the cynosure of thousands of women, 
and one of them, a Miss Pierce, of Brooklyn, fell deeply 
in love with him, and haunted his steps wherever he 
went. She was wealthy, or, at least, " well to do," and 
had her horses and carriage, and she followed him with 
such persistence and endearments that he finally mar- 
ried her.* The union proved an unhappy one. The 
lady probably found that not all is gold that glitters, 
and the preacher learned, ere long, that sometimes 

" Love "with gall and honey doth abound," 

and directly, as it seemed, the mixture became so em- 
bittered as to become a torment instead of a. pleasure. 



* It has been thought by many persons that this marriage was 
solemnized while the first Mrs. M. was still living. This, we are 
assured by the gentleman already quoted, was not the fact. 



166 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Among the incidents current concerning the social life 
of the preacher was this : On a certain occasion some 
two or three friends accompanied him home, and, it 
being evening, Mr. Maffitt requested the lady to get 
them a light supper. After a while the bell tinkled, 
and the gentlemen repaired to the dining-room. The 
table was set in the usual style, except that at each 
plate was a lighted candle, but not a mouthful of any- 
thing to eat. The gentlemen were seated, and the lady 
took her accustomed position at one end of the table, 
and there appearing no prospect for anything to eat, 
Mr. Maffitt said, " Well, my dear, where is the food ?" 
" Didn't you tell me," said she, " to get you a light 
supper ? here is plenty of light." The tradition does 
not state whether or not anything more substantial was 
furnished after this development. Neither do we vouch 
for the truth of it. It is, however, a fair illustration 
of what was understood to be the incongruous nature 
of the inner or social life of the couple. Strange, in- 
comprehensible creature as was this man, glittering and 
evanescent, we may yet not doubt that his preaching 
was productive of much good. He certainly roused 
the multitude, and many hundreds, if not thousands, 
were not only awakened through his instrumentality, 
but soundly converted. 

We are not able to state at what time the brilliancy 
of Maffitt's star began to pale, nor the specific reason 
therefor, but it could not be otherwise than that such 
a nature in such a sphere must come to grief. Many 
unpleasant, if not ill-natured, things were said of him, 



REV. JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT. 167 



and that he laid himself open to much adverse criticism 
is beyond question. Mr. Elsegood tells us of an occur- 
rence which he witnessed on an occasion before he left 
Dublin, when with a brother he was out during the 
evening on church business, and knowing that Maffitt 
was to preach in the Strand, they concluded to call in 
on their way home. When they reached the church 
and entered, the preacher was in the act of pronouncing 
the benediction, and so soon as he had finished he 
sprang quickly to the floor and, going among the 
sisters, greeted several of them with a kiss. 

In 1835, Mr. Maffitt associated himself with Rev. 
Lewis Garret, of Nashville, Tennessee, in the publication 
of the Western 3fethodist. In 1836-37 he was agent 
for a college in Alabama, and subsequently was elected 
professor of belles-lettres and elocution, a position which 
he filled for but a very short time, if indeed he at all 
entered on its duties. He was at one time, in 1841, 
chaplain to the National House of Representatives, 
and he died suddenly, in May, 1850, of heart-disease, 
declaring almost with his last breath that his enemies 
had broken his heart. And thus was extinguished a 
life whose brilliancy and magnetic power for a time 
challenged the admiration of the New World, and 
Avhose mysterious fatality brought a pang of grief to 
countless friends. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Lay Delegation — The Philadelphia Movement. 

We have claimed for the "Quaker City," in an 
early chapter of this series, the merit of being, practi- 
cally, at least, the birthplace of American Methodism, 
and it is a matter of just pride with very many of the 
brethren that to the action, influence, and energy of 
Philadelphia Methodists is due a reform, or improve- 
ment in structure or polity, that has contributed largely 
to the splendid success that has marked the progress 
of the Church during these later years. It is to the 
preachers, as pioneers in the wilderness, who traversed 
the waste places, the forests, and the towns and cities, 
and cut the way for Gospel truth, that we owe the in- 
troduction and establishment of Methodism ; but it is 
to the laity that we are indebted for the vast material 
agencies and energies that have given to it the present 
colossal proportions. The missionary work, the Sun- 
day-school enterprises, and the establishment of institu- 
tions of learning — nurseries from which are supplied 
the educated and cultivated talent with which our pul- 
pits are now in a large measure filled — are mainly the 
work of the laity. 

Incidentally, in the course of these sketches, we have 
had occasion to refer to the demand which, from time 
168 



AN IMPORTANT MOVEMENT. 



169 



to time, arose for such a modification of "the restrictive 
rules" of the Church as would allow of 

A LAY REPRESENTATION IN THE GENERAL CON- 
FERENCE ; 

but, as the subject is an important one, and closely 
allied in principle to that on which the general gov- 
ernment of the country is based, it will doubtless be 
of interest if we sketch more elaborately the progress 
of the proposition until it was finally conceded and 
consummated. 

There was, doubtless, good reason at the beginning 
for confining the legislative power of the Church exclu- 
sively to the clergy, but from the earliest existence or 
establishment of Methodism in America, there was a 
certain degree of unrest among the people in regard to 
the subject, although for many years it appeared merely 
as an inactive sentiment ; but there would often be oc- 
casions when the utter helplessness of the laity concern- 
ing matters affecting their interest, or in which their 
opinions were involved, was not only severely felt but 
strongly deprecated. The local preachers, especially, 
from an early period objected to the rule that denied 
them admission to the General Conference, and, as the 
Church grew in numbers and accumulated property, it 
was plain to be seen that a different and more business- 
like element was needed in the legislative body; the 
preachers, however, sternly resisted the demand for a 
more popular representation. 

As was seen in a previous chapter, it was not until 
h 15 



170 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 

the year 1808 that the demand for a delegated body of 
preachers was conceded, and even then not until there 
was danger of secession did the majority yield the point. 
Following upon this result, and thus early there was a 
more active discussion of the principle of lay represen- 
tation, but there was for several years no active move- 
ment to promote the success of the measure; but in 
the interim, however, between the two General Confer- 
ences of 1816 and 1820 the discussion was greatly in- 
creased, and immediately after the adjournment of the 
Conference of 1820 Rev. William S. Stockton, an active 
member of the Church, to whom we have had occasion 
to refer previously, commenced the publication at Tren- 
ton of his Wesleyan Repository. In this journal were 
demanded and advocated several radical changes in the 
polity of the Church, prominent among which was the 
right to lay representation. This was the first pro- 
nounced public demand for the reform, and, as will be 
remembered, the movement begun by Mr. Stockton 
eventuated in a secession, and the establishment of the 
" Methodist Protestant Church." 

THE REFORM MOVEMENT, 

which was inaugurated by the establishment of Mr. 
Stockton's paper and resulted as just stated, gave much 
vitality to the discussion of the lay delegate question, 
which was not by any means confined to " the extrem- 
ists" which he and some others represented ; but, on 
the contrary, many of the best and most conservative 
men in the connection entered into the movement. 



LAV REPRESENTATION. 



Ill 



" The reformers," however, demanded too much. They 
required the abolition or material modification of both 
the episcopal office and the presiding eldership. They 
sought to accomplish what they termed " republican 
Methodism," and would have destroyed the entire 
Church fabric, doubtless, if they could have had their 
own way, and it is probable that the right of lay rep- 
resentation would have been conceded much sooner than 
it was if " the reformers" had been less aggressive or 
reckless in their demands and methods. The subject 
was under discussion in the Conference of 1828, not, 
however, as a distinctive proposition, but in connection 
with the other so-called " reforms" already mentioned ; 
and again, in 1840, after the secession of the " Methodist 
Protestants," it was considered on petitions from some 
of the societies, and, indeed, at nearly every session 
there were petitions from individuals and churches 
asking for the change, which were uniformly referred 
and reported upon negatively. 

BEGINNING- OF THE PHILADELPHIA MOVEMENT. 

In the month of November, 1851, an informal meet- 
ing of Methodist gentlemen was held at the store of 
Messrs. Hieskell, Hoskins & Co., on the corner of Fifth 
and Market Streets, Philadelphia, at which there were 
present Messrs. Colson Hieskell, Cornelius A. Walborn, 
Dr. William B. Tilden, T. K. Collins, William Carlisle, 
John Whiteman, J. B. Chrisman, William P. Hacker, 
James J. Boswell, Samuel Ashmead, John M. Wetherill, 
and John Huff. This meeting was convened on account 



172 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



of a difficulty that had taken place between Mr. Thomas 
W. Price, then a class-leader at St. George's, and the 
pastor in charge, Rev. W. M. D. Ryan, and a recur- 
rence to the circumstance will show what great results 
are, under the providence of God, frequently accom- 
plished from an apparently insignificant beginning. It 
is scarcely worth while to narrate here the particulars 
of the grievance complained of by Mr. Price ; suffice 
it to say that, after considerable conversation on that 
subject, the general condition of the Church came under 
review, when one of the gentlemen present — Mr. Wal- 
born, we think — suggested that there was really no 
remedy for any grievance that might arise, except 
through the preachers, and that the laity being, under 
the existing system of Church government, powerless, 
there would have to be ere long an alteration of the 
representative body of the Church, so that the mem- 
bership would have a voice in its conduct. It was 
also urged that there was a generally apathetic con- 
dition throughout the connection, much of which was 
believed to be attributable to the absence of the popular 
element from the deliberative councils of the Church, 
and these views being concurred in by the parties 
present, a second meeting was held at the store of Mr. 
Walborn. At this second meeting it was agreed to 
call together 



A MEETING OF LAY MEMBERS FROM ALL THE 
CHURCHES, 

and in furtherance of that object the following circular 



THE PHILADELPHIA MOVEMENT. 173 



was issued to one hundred members, representatives of 
twenty churches then in active work : 

" Dear Sir : The undersigned have been appointed 
a committee to invite five lay members from each of 
the M. E. churches of the city and districts to meet 
at Trinity M. E. Church, at 7J o'clock, on Thursday 
evening, 20th inst., to consider the present condition 
of the Church and the propriety of petitioning the 
ensuing General Conference in relation to some matters 
deemed essential to its future prosperity. 

" You are earnestly invited to be present. 
" C. A. Walborn, " John Whiteman, 

" C. HlESKELL, " J. B. CHRISMAN, 

" W. P. Tildest, " W. P. Hacker, 
"T. K. Collins. 

"Philadelphia, November 17, 1851." 

In response to this call ninety-eight gentlemen met 
in Trinity Church on the 20th of November, 1851. 
Mr. James J. Boswell, of Union Church, was called to 
the chair, and the following-named members were desig- 
nated as Vice-Presidents: T. K. Collins, Nazareth; P. 
E. McNeilie, Eighth Street; Colson Hieskell, Trinity; 
G. B. Longacre, St. George's ; John Thompson, Eben- 
ezer ; Samuel Ashmead, Union ; George Hamilton, 
Kensington ; and Michael Fricke, Cohocksink ; and 
for Secretaries, Messrs. William P, Hacker, J. B. Chris- 
man, and William Carlisle, Jr., were chosen. The 
meeting was opened with prayer by Eev. David H. 

15* 



174 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Kollock,* after which its object was stated by the 
chairman, and Dr. Tilden, having moved for the ap- 
pointment of a committee to report business, Messrs. 
Tilden, Cummings, Hieskell, Collins, and Ashmead 
were appointed. 

The preamble and resolutions reported by the com- 
mittee were drawn with much care, and, when submitted 
to a vote, were agreed to with only two dissenting voices. 
The preamble declared that it " is evident to any ob- 
serving mind that the Church is not fulfilling, as could 
be desired, the great and important objects of its mis- 
sion." It was assumed that the reason therefor was 
traceable to " the unequal rights, interests, and depend- 
encies of the ministry and laity," and the belief was 
expressed that a fair distribution of these between the 
ministers and lay members would insure the welfare 
and efficiency of both, and redound to the honor of the 
Church ; and it was, therefore, 

" Resolved, That this meeting, composed of members 
of the various Methodist Episcopal churches in the 
city and districts of Philadelphia, take immediate steps 
to call a general meeting of all the lay brethren of the 
Church in the city and county of Philadelphia, in view 
of petitioning the next General Conference for such 
alterations in the government of the Church as will 

* Mr. Kollock was for many years an earnest, faithful, and 
zealous local preacher in Philadelphia, and is remembered es- 
pecially by the poor on account of his kindly deeds among them 
when suffering under affliction. 



LAY REPRESENTATION. 



175 



remove any objectionable features that may present 
themselves, and secure to the laity a voice in its coun- 
cils. 

" Resolved, That in this movement we wish to be dis- 
tinctly understood as disavowing all ' radical' or schis- 
matic purposes, and adhering alone to those of a purely 
conservative character, having for their objects the good 
of the Church in all its relations. 

" Resolved, That we now, as ever, entertain the great- 
est confidence in the intelligence, usefulness, and piety 
of the ministry of our Church, and most cordially in- 
vite them to unite their influence and efforts with ours 
in the accomplishment of the objects contemplated in 
the first resolution. 

" Resolved, That a committee, to consist of nine per- 
sons, be appointed by the chairman of this meeting to 
act as an executive committee, whose business it shall 
be to procure a suitable place of meeting, prepare reso- 
lutions, nominate officers, and whatever else may be 
necessary to carry the objects of this meeting into effect." 

We quote these resolutions in extenso because they 
constitute an important part of the history of American 
Methodism. It was well stated at this meeting that for 
six or eight years previously the Church had been stand- 
ing still, if not retrograding. As matters were at that 
time the structural government of the Church was an 
aristocracy, a system under which it must have rotted 
and fallen in pieces within the second century of its 
existence; and the Philadelphia movement of 1851, 



176 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



begun in a dry-goods store, was designed to give to it 
such vitality as would save it from a destruction that 
must have followed upon the attempt to perpetuate a 
government so foreign to all the traditions of the re- 
public. There is one element of society in our country 
that will consent to live under an aristocratic or even 
an oligarchical Church government, but it is not such 
as is gathered into the Methodist, the Episcopal, the 
Baptist, or the Presbyterian Church, and it is hence we 
state that the reform here sought to be obtained was 
essential, not only to the prosperity of the Church, but 
its continued existence in the future. 

The committee appointed under the fourth resolution 
consisted of Messrs. Tilden, Ashmead 9 Cummings, 
McNeille, Hieskell, Kollock, Chrisman, Whiteman, 
and Huff. They organized promptly, and at once is- 
sued circulars to the male members of all the societies 
for 

A MEETING AT UNION CHUKOH, ON THE llTH OF 
DECEMBER. 

This meeting was well attended, and organized by 
calling Samuel Ashmead to the chair, with Anthony 
Null, James J. Boswell, Archibald Wright, John Bell 
Robinson, T. K. Collins, Ephraim Clark, James B. 
Dare, J. Y. Calder, David Horn, Matthew Kramer, 
C. P. Steinman, Rudolph Hoeflick, William Rhoades, 
William Divine, John Caldwell, James W. Early, John 
Ashcraft, Robert Boone, John W. Heins, Israel James, 
J. Shallcross, William Walker, William Rose, Sr., as 



A GENERAL CONVENTION CALLED. 177 



Vice-Presidents, and William P. Hacker, C. A. Wal- 
born, Thomas W. Price, and George Hamilton, as 
Secretaries. 

The proceedings at this meeting were very similar to 
those at Trinity. The needs of the Church were re- 
stated, and the general spirit evinced clearly indicated 
that the new movement was to be vigorously and ener- 
getically pressed ; and Mr. Alexander Cummings, on 
behalf of the committee previously appointed, presented 
a series of resolutions which was adopted with great 
unanimity, except that a number of gentlemen doubted 
the expediency of claiming lay representation in the 
Annual Conferences. As at the Trinity meeting, the 
resolutions adopted were well and carefully drawn, the 
principal one providing for the appointment of a com- 
mittee of twenty persons, " to adopt the necessary meas- 
ures to call a General Convention, to be held in the 
city of Philadelphia, on Wednesday, the 3d of March, 
1852, to consist of delegates from the various stations 
and circuits v/ithin the bounds of our Church, to take 
into consideration the propriety of petitioning the Gen- 
eral Conference for such action as will secure the intro- 
duction of lay delegates into our Conferences, and such 
other modifications in the government of our Church 
as the wisdom of the Convention may suggest." 

The committee of twenty appointed at this meeting 
had for its chairman President Allen, of Girard College, 
and they in a very short time issued an address " To 
the ministry and laity of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the United States." 



178 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



On the 3d of March, at ten o'clock, the Convention 
met in Nazareth Church, Mr. Hieskell being called tem- 
porarily to the chair. Delegates were present on the 
first day from various sections of the State and all the 
city churches, and from New York, Vermont, Massa- 
chusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, District of Columbia, etc. 
Before proceeding to a permanent organization the Con- 
vention determined to spend some time in devotional 
exercises, during which Brothers Watkins of New York 
City, Root of Buffalo, and Black of Pittsburgh sever- 
ally addressed the Throne of Grace, and the report of 
the committee on Permanent Organization being then 
received, Professor Allen, of Girard College, was chosen 
President, with Vice-Presidents and Secretaries from 
the respective localities represented in the Conven- 
tion. 

On the second day the Convention met in Trinity 
Church, and after devotional exercises Mr. John White- 
man, chairman of the committee appointed for the pur- 
pose, made report of a series of resolutions, which, after 
being fully discussed, were adopted with great unanim- 
ity. The resolutions provided for a committee to cause 
the memorial and resolutions to be circulated through- 
out the connection and to attend the General Conference 
and present the same, and urge upon it the grant of its 
prayer. The key-note of this movement was thus given 
by President Allen in his address to the Convention 
before its adjournment : " If the Conference shall reject 
our petition let me say to you and to the Church that 
this movement will not end here. It will still go on and 



THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. 



179 



prosper. We shall not secede ; we shall not tear the bosom 
of the Church which has nurtured us; we shall set up no 
separate organization, but we shall strive, by all lawful 
and Christian means, to obtain four years hence what we 
fail to obtain now. And if we are again refused we 
shall not be conquered ; we shall renew the struggle 
until we do succeed. And believe me, though we 
may have to wait long, the brother is in this Conven- 
tion who will live to see the right of representation 
confirmed to the laity, and to witness the assembling 
of lay delegates in our Annual and General Confer- 
ences." 

Nearly three decades of time have elapsed since this 
movement was begun and these utterances were given 
to the world. The Conference of 1852, which met in 
Boston only a few weeks later, turned the suppliants 
away empty-handed ; but we know the fact that a deep 
and lasting impression was made upon its members by 
the committee appointed from the Philadelphia Con- 
vention. In 1856 — a year of great political excitement 
— the appeal was again made, and again the preachers 
refused to divide their power with their brethren, but 
the work of argument and persuasion went on. The 
brethren were calm, dispassionate, but oh, how earnest 
in the pursuit of their object ! and in 1860 the Confer- 
ence passed a resolution expressing its willingness to 
grant the request, provided it was desired by a majority 
of the membership, lay and clerical, and providing also 
for a submission of the proposition to such a vote. This, 
it will be remembered, was 



180 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



THE CRUCIAL PERIOD IN THE HISTORY OF OUR 
COUNTRY. 

The Rebellion had not yet broken out when the Con- 
ference was adjourned, but ere the people were called 
on to cast their votes in the churches for or against the 
reform movement, the ghastly goddess of the battle- 
field had 

" Waved her dread pinion to the breeze of morn, 
Peal'd her loud drum and twang 'd her trumpet horn," 

and men of all sects and degrees in life were rushing to 
those sanguinary fields of carnage and death, on which 
the blood of an hundred thousand men was shed to 
save the life of the government under whose benign 
rule and care all the churches had grown into life and 
usefulness. There was but little time to consider any- 
thing but the great business of the day. The life of a 
great nation was suspended in the balance, and as men 
hurried to and fro they forgot for the time that they had 
a personal grievance that required their attention, and 
when the vote was counted it was found that but twenty- 
three thousand eight hundred and eighty-four had voted 
in favor of the proposition, while forty-seven thousand 
eight hundred and fifty-five had voted against it. But 
peace, with all her allurements, brought the people back 
to the churches, and the great work of the century hav- 
ing been accomplished, the brethren turned their atten- 
tion again toward the Conference, seeking those personal 
rights in the Church the possession of which in the 



THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. \%\ 

nation had been resealed through spilling the blood 
of many martyrs, and again the Conference, at its ses- 
sion of 1868, submitted the question to the people for 
their judgment. This time there was no hesitancy nor 
uncertain sound, and when the votes were gathered in 
and counted it was found that more than a hundred 
thousand had been given in support of the demand for 
lay representation, while only about fifty thousand had 
doubted the expediency of the proposition and voted in 
the negative, and at the Conference of 1872 the churches 
throughout the entire connection were represented in 
part by lay delegates ; and thus, in just twenty years 
after the adjournment of the Philadelphia Convention 
was the prophecy of President Allen verified, and the 
member of that body who had preceded him in filling 
the chair as its presiding officer temporarily in 1852 
occupied a seat on the floor of the General Conference 
of 1872 as a lay delegate thereto from the churches of 
the city of Philadelphia. 



16 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 



Eev. Joseph Kusling. 

Of all the mighty agencies and energies that may be 
invoked by civilization for a controlling power the press, 
with its adjunct of types, is without doubt the greatest. 
With its millions of tongues, it invades every land, takes 
possession of every household, penetrates every cloister, 
reigns supreme among all peoples, and dominates the 
great heart of mankind. Honestly, intelligently, and 
virtuously conducted, it is the greatest blessing that can 
be bestowed on the human family, and prostituted to 
dishonest or licentious purposes, it would constitute such 
a curse as only the powers of hell could equal. Speech 
alone can venture to successfully contend with types 
and the power of the press. An eminent member of 
the Philadelphia Bar in its palmy days, who was 
distinguished above most of his contemporaries on 
account of his eloquence and brilliancy of speech, 
said, "One inspired and accomplished orator, of him- 
self, without the influence of birth or fortune, or any 
external aid, drawing only upon his own intellectual 
resources, shall confront the press, raise and quell 
armies at pleasure, stand forth unblenching in the full 
blaze of royalty, govern whole nations, and enchant 
while he governs. There is no aristocracy," said he, 
182 



REV. JOSEPH RU SLING. 



183 



" so supreme and unquestionable as the aristocracy of 
speech." 

In front of Fifth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Philadelphia, lie buried the mortal remains of Rev. 
Joseph Rusling, whom we remember as one of the most 
pleasing and effective preachers of the olden time. Mr. 
Rusling was born in Lincolnshire, England, in the year 
1788. His parents emigrated to the United States in 
1795, landing in New York, and proceeded shortly 
thereafter to the vicinity of Hackettstown, in Warren 
County, New Jersey, where they settled. They were 
people in very moderate circumstances, and the elder 
Rusling commenced at once the business of farming, in 
which he was assisted by the son as he grew up to man- 
hood. When about twenty years of age the subject of 
this sketch was, at a camp-meeting held in the neighbor- 
hood, converted to God, and in four years thereafter he 
began preaching. In the year 1814 he was received 
in the Philadelphia Conference on trial, and in 1816 
admitted into full connection. As we remember Mr. 
Rusling, he was a gentleman of rather delicate physical 
organization. He was of medium stature, with a head 
indicating marked intellectual capacity. He had a clear, 
dark, and penetrating eye, and was altogether a person 
of decidedly prepossessing appearance. Raised on the 
farm and to labor in the fields, he had but little oppor- 
tunity for education. He was, however, a boy of stu- 
dious and thoughtful nature ; and as a man, earnest and 
energetic in the pursuit of knowledge. He became, 
after entering upon his ministerial labors, a pupil of 



184 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Rev. William Mann, under whose tuition he studied 
and acquired what were wont to be termed " the dead 
languages."* 

Intellectually, Mr. Rusling was above the average of 
the Methodist preachers of his time. As an author he 
was prolific. He wrote much and well, and it is to be 
regretted that, in consequence of what must be stated 
as the infidelity of one on whom he relied for the com- 
pilation and preparation of a very considerable amount 
of manuscript, the world has but slight opportunity to 
judge of his productions. He was a constant con- 
tributor to such Methodist literary publications as 
passed through the press during his active life, such 
as The Methodist Magazine, Youth's Instructor, etc. 
Many of his sermons were published in pamphlet form, 
but they were never concentrated or brought together 
and published as a whole. Among the works published 
by him were " Devotional Exercises," a volume of 
poetry containing some two hundred and fifty pages, 
and published in 1836. " Original Hymns for Sunday- 
schools" was issued in 1837, and "The Christian's Com- 
panion," published a year later, was a transposition into 
verse of a portion of the Psalms of David and other 



* Rev. William Mann was for many years a local preacher in 
Philadelphia, and conducted a classical academy on Vine Street 
west of Fourth. He was celebrated as a linguist and a successful 
teacher of the ancient languages, and was to the Methodist 
preachers of the olden time very much like what Solon and 
Socrates were to the many students who sought them for instruc- 
tion in philosophy in the early ages of the world. 



EUSLING AS AN AUTHOR. 



185 



selections from the Holy Scriptures. He also attempted 
and published for some time a small Sunday-school 
journal, but lacking the necessary support it was dis- 
continued. 

During twenty-two years of active pulpit work Mr. 
Eusling was constantly engaged in literary pursuits. 

AS A POET 

he was simple, plain, always devotional. His muse was 
a religious one ; his poetry was all prayer and praise, 
chaste and pure as the leaflets that cluster around the 
eternal throne of God. In the log cabin on a Jersey 
circuit ; in the stately city church ; in the smiling valley, 
or amid the busy haunts of trade and commerce, his 
harp was ever attuned to praise of the Redeemer. He 
sung, as was said of another better known to fame, 
" not to the God of Nature alone, but as the Almighty 
Father and Friend revealed in the life-giving Gospel 
of Jesus Christ." Modest, unpretentious, earnest, and 
laborious, Rusling lived in an atmosphere peculiar to 
himself. His was a life of earnest devotion, of deep 
thought and trustful confidence, but he did not shun 
the world, neither did he affect to despise either its 
duties or allurements ; on the contrary, he was a genial 
gentleman, a most pleasant companion, a devoted friend, 
and one of the most practical men, perhaps, among the 
Methodist ministers of his time. 

Of his Sunday-school hymns, Dr. Durbin said they 
were really such, and the late Willis Gaylord Clark 
commended them highly for their "clearness and purity 

16* 



186 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



of thought/' — qualities that rendered them peculiarly 
calculated to guide and interest the young mind. 

We have said that Mr. Rusling's parents were in but 
moderate circumstances. They were poor people, — the 
traditional condition of the Methodist preacher of the 
olden time. When he was about starting on his first 
tour as an itinerant, his father borrowed for him a 
horse, not being able to purchase one for him, and his 
pious mother put into his hand a silver dollar; and 
thus he went forth bearing the message of the Master. 
His first circuit was what was known in those days as 
" Hamburg," in New Jersey, and it took in nearly if 
not quite all that portion of the State north of Trenton 
and well-nigh over to the beach on one side and to the 
Pennsylvania line on the other. Much of this circuit 
was an unbroken forest, with an occasional swamp, and 
the young preacher was obliged to carry a hatchet in 
his saddle-bags, with which he " blazed" the trees or 
cut off a limb, so that he could follow the trail back 
again. Mr. Rusling had for a colleague on this cir- 
cuit Rev. George Banghart, and it was arranged be- 
tween them that one should follow the other, and thus 
give the people the benefit of more frequent preach- 
ing, six weeks being required to go over the ground. 
Rusling went ahead and " blazed" the trees so that 
Banghart could follow, and on one occasion some mis- 
chievous men or boys of the country, thinking to lead 
the preachers on a sort of " wild goose chase," went on 
Rusling's trail, and, starting at a certain point, blazed 
the trees in a direction different from that he had taken, 



R U SLING IN BURLINGTON 187 

and when Banghart came along he followed the new- 
made route, and at nightfall found himself on the edge 
of an extensive swamp, where he had the green turf 
for a pillow on which to rest his weary head, and the 
stars for candles to light him to his couch ; but there 
was no sleep for the decoyed preacher, there being 
wolves and other wild animals in the Jersey forests 
and swamps at that period. Banghart retraced his 
steps the next day, and, striking Rusling's path again, 
brought up at the proper place. He christened the 
road to the swamp " the infernal saints' path." This 
was in 1814. In 1815 Mr. Eusling was assigned to 

BURLINGTON CIRCUIT, 

where there was a better civilization, and finding con- 
siderable population and a good church in the old town, 
the young preacher made up his mind that he would 
make an impression, and he prepared himself accord- 
ingly, and, as he related afterward, he thought he had 
been entirely successful. After the meeting had been 
closed and the preacher had stepped down from the 
pulpit, the brethren and sisters gathered around him 
to make his acquaintance, and, at the same time, bid 
him welcome; and, after the usual salutations and 
greetings were gone through with, an old lady, who 
had been viewing the scene, sidled up, and, taking Rus- 
ling by the arm, said, u What did you follow before 
you began to preach ?" " I worked on the farm, with 
my father/' he replied. "Well," said the sister, "if 
you can't preach any better than that, you'd better go 



188 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



back to the plough." Many young men would have 
wilted under such a wet blanket, but not so with Pus- 
ling; he replied to the sister in his usual pleasant 
manner, and she afterward became one of his most 
fast friends. The truth was that the young preacher 
had gone beyond the old lady's depth, and developed 
a capacity which, as we shall see, caused him to be 
much sought after in later years throughout the Con- 
ference. 

The next year he was transferred to Trenton circuit, 
— a still more comfortable place, — and in 1817-18 he 
was stationed at St. George's charge, when he alternated 
with the other preachers at Ebenezer, Salem, and Naza- 
reth, and it was during this latter year that he rendered 
himself most active and useful in the enterprise of 
constructing the " New Ebenezer" church on Christian 
Street. He was extremely popular with the Ebenezer 
people, several of whom named their sons after him. 
Then the following year he was at Wilmington, and 
during 1821-22 he was stationed at St. John's, in Phila- 
delphia, after which he was at New Brunswick, New 
Mills (now Pemberton), New Jersey, and at Newark : 
and in 1828 he was again stationed at St. John's, where 
he was continued during four years ; and in 1832, the new 
Fifth Street church having been purchased for him, he 
was, by the bishops, assigned to that pastorate, making 
a continuous service of six years in the city. This was 
a most unusual circumstance, and entirely inconsistent 
with the rule which confined the city term to two years. 
There was, however, a reason for this departure from 



RU SLING IN COURT. 



189 



rule, beyond the popularity of the preacher, which 
grew out of 

AN EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE. 

Among the members at St. John's was a very re- 
spectable man named Anthony Shermer, who, during 
Mr. Rusling's pastorate, from some cause or other un- 
known to us, had got wrong in his head, and on a cer- 
tain occasion, while Mr. Rusling was preaching, Sher- 
mer, in a loud tone of voice, exclaimed, " That's a lie!" 
The congregation was not only startled, but indignant, 
and proposed removing the offending member at once; 
but Mr. Rusling, in his quiet way, said, " Never mind, 
brethren, it affects no one but myself, and is of no con- 
sequence," and the affair was passed over, but not with- 
out a sensation that was continued in the congregation 
and neighborhood during the week. On the next Sab- 
bath the offence was repeated in the same way, and, 
having been again condoned, matters rested until the fol- 
lowing Sunday, when, as though the offender was made 
bold through the kind consideration and sympathy of 
friends, the disturbance was repeated a third time. 
This was too much, and the unfortunate Shermer was 
straightway taken out of the church and forthwith ex- 
pelled from the society. The offender was perhaps just 
enough unhinged in mind to have become devilish, 
and, influenced, doubtless, by bad advisers, of whom 
there are always plenty on hand, he at once began a 
suit against Mr. Rusling and the trustees for damages. 
He employed as his counsel David Paul Brown, Esq., 



190 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and one of the Rawles, and the church retained for 
their defence Hon. Josiah Randall and Peter A. Brown, 
Esq., who, in addition to being a most excellent lawyer, 
was something of a scientist. A good many delays took 
place before the cause was brought to trial, and when 
it was reached the verdict was for the defendant ; but 
the other side was bent on mischief, apparently, and 
appealed. When Mr. Rusling's two years in the pas- 
torate were about to expire the cause was still pending, 
and the bishops, thinking it would not be good policy 
to assign him elsewhere under the circumstances, re- 
appointed him for two years more. These two years 
were also rolled away among the eternities, and still, 
by reason of the delays and continued motions and ap- 
peals of Mr. Shermer, the cause was undisposed of, and 
there seemed to the bishops a gravity about the position 
of the persecuted preacher that they must recognize and 
provide for. 

At and previous to this time, say 1830, there was on 
the north side of Coates Street, above Second, a Pres- 
byterian church of which " Jimmy Patterson" was the 
pastor. He held the most pronounced and, indeed, 
extreme views on the subject of election, and preached 
that there were children in hell only a week old. Not- 
withstanding the promulgation of such an egregious 
doctrine the society seemed to have succeeded, and at 
about this time they had purchased a lot on the west side 
of Fifth Street, on which was constructed what is now 
known as Fifth Street Methodist Episcopal Church. 

But the Presbyterians exhausted their funds before 



RUSLING ORGANIZES A NEW CHURCH. 191 



the building was completed, and were obliged to sell it. 
The friends of Mr. Rusling, inspired by the bishop, at 
once began negotiations for the purchase of the property, 
and in a very short time they were able to secure it, 
and, proceeding at once to finish the structure, a new 
temple was directly dedicated to God and Methodism, 
with " Josie Rusling," as the people were wont to name 
him, as its pastor. The new edifice had been designed, 
of course, by the Presbyterians for a pew-church, and 
the seating was on the floor, when purchased, so ar- 
ranged, but without the doors, and so it was permitted 
to remain. It was tastefully finished, for Rusling was 
a man of order and taste, and the choir was for the first 
time placed in the end gallery, the latest improvement 
in this regard previously having been to station the 
singers in the centre of the congregation on the ground 
floor. 

It is narrated of Rev. John Kennedy, who was sta- 
tioned at this time in Wilmington, we believe, that at 
a Conference meeting he criticised Mr. Rusling's new 
church with some severity, saying that it was a pewed 
church, only that the doors were not hung, and he sup- 
posed the next thing would be to have a fiddle in the 
choir. It is something remarkable that the first preacher 
in charge of the first Methodist pew-church in Penn- 
sylvania (Trinity) was the same Mr. Kennedy, who was 
delighted with the arrangement ; thus time wears away 
the ragged edges from our prejudices, as " circumstances 
alter cases." This scrap of history accounts for Mr. 
Rusling's continuous service of six years in the city ; 



192 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



but we should not leave the subject without mentioning 
that the church of our Presbyterian friend Patterson, 
on Coates Street, was in after-years degraded to theat- 
rical uses, and that the building is now devoted to the 
altogether respectable business of selling goods at auc- 
tion. By the time Mr. Rusling's term of two years at 
Fifth Street had expired the lawsuit had ended, all the 
decisions being in favor of the preacher and his trustees, 
after which he was again sent to Wilmington, where he 
was also very popular. 

Rusling was a very fine singer, and gave much at- 
tention to the music of all his congregations, deeming 
it a highly important element of worship. He believed 
in making worship attractive to the masses of the peo- 
ple, and was an advocate of improved church architec- 
ture and general arrangement. It was through him 
that the wretched rule that sent a man into the church 
by one door and his wife by another was first broken 
into at Fifth Street, albeit the aisle was still permitted 
to separate them when seated. 

Mr. Rusling, although always a poor man, was liberal- 
hearted and charitable. He may be said to have been 

THE FOSTER-FATHER OF ABEL STEVENS, 

the celebrated " boy preacher" of the olden time. While 
stationed at St. John's some of the ladies of the con- 
gregation, in their visits of mercy, came across -Mrs. 
Stevens, who was struggling with the world to gain a 
subsistence and rear her several small children. Among 
these was Abel, who was working in the old Globe 



RUSLING AND ABEL STEVENS. 



193 



Mill as a " piecer" on a spinning-mule, for which he 
received probably a dollar or a dollar and a half a week. 
He was a bright and intelligent boy, and Rusling's at- 
tention having been called to him he at once took an 
interest in his welfare. Mr. Rusling was in the habit 
of keeping on hand, besides his own publications, some 
such books as might be wanted by members of his con- 
gregation, or for Sunday-school purposes, selling them 
and appropriating such profit as might be realized to 
objects of charity. He had at the period now under 
review a small bookstore at his house on Fourth Street, 
below Race, — which, by the way, formed the nucleus of 
the very respectable establishment now known as the 
" Methodist Book Concern," on Arch Street, west of 
Tenth, — and discovering, as he thought, in the boy Ste- 
vens the germs of intellect and ability, he took charge 
of and made him a store boy. This little bookstore, 
however, was, not very long after, moved down in front 
of " the Academy," and arrangements were made for 
the education of Abel for the ministry. Mr. Jacob 
Carrigan, Mr. John Wilmer, and Mr. Richard Benson, 
with, perhaps, one or two other Academy members, 
made themselves responsible for a portion of the boy's 
expenses, while Rusling, we are informed, took charge 
of his education, and when Dickinson College came 
into possession of the Methodists, sent him there for a 
year before he entered regularly into the ministry by 
joining the New England Conference, 
i 17 



194 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW, 



AS A PREACH EE, 

Rusling was what we would term didactic, or doctrinal. 
His power of reasoning was great, and he was engaging 
and persuasive, leading his hearers by such pleasing 
methods and arrangement of his discourse as rendered 
him not only attractive but popular wherever he was 
stationed. As we remember him, there was no affec- 
tation of oratory about him. He dealt but sparingly 
with tropes, metaphors, and such rhetorical figures as 
are by many men called to their aid. His great reli- 
ance was on the promises of the Gospels, which he 
always presented with marked effect, and his voice and 
gesture were unexceptionable. But few men in the 
Conference surpassed him as a camp-meeting preacher, 
and his harvest of souls was an abundant one. 

He had a younger brother, Sedgwick, who was also 
a preacher, connected with the New Jersey Conference 
after its establishment. Sedgwick at one time in the 
course of his ministry became despondent and discour- 
aged, and, looking up his elder brother, he said, " Josie, 
I think I'll give up preaching and go at something else/' 
" Give up !" said Joseph ; " why ? what for ? What's 
the matter, Sedgy ?" " Well," said the younger brother, 
" I don't see that I am doing any good ; I don't know 
of a soul that has been converted under my preaching." 
"You don't?" said Joseph ; " well, I do, brother Sedge, 
— for, only a few weeks ago, I met a lady who told me 
she had been awakened and converted under your 
preaching." " That^s enough, then," said Sedgwick ; 



R US LING AS A PREACHER. 



195 



" I've been preaching about seven years, and I'll preach 
seven more to gain another soul to Christ !" And so 
he went forth again, and in after-years could count the 
sheaves in his harvest not by scores but by many hun- 
dreds. 

Mr. Rusling is claimed by the Methodists of New 
Castle, Delaware, as the father of their church. His 
last effective relation was on the Wilmington district, 
which embraced that city ; and, having contracted dis- 
ease some years previously from a severe cold, which 
resulted in consumption, he was in 1836 placed on the 
superannuated list in connection with his much-loved 
Fifth Street Church, and in 1839 his spirit winged its 
way to the presence of the Master whose cause he had 
so well served. His end was peace; his exit calm. 
And, repeating one of his own stanzas, we may say of 
him, as he wrote of McComb, — 

" How is the Lord's anointed slain ! 
Numbered with the illustrious dead ; 
He did unto the Mount repair, 
And Heaven came down and met him there." 



f 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Itinerancy. 

There are various opinions current as to the effect 
of what we term " the progress of the age" in its rela- 
tions to religion. This is an advanced and advancing 
century, and the word " progress" has now a much 
more comprehensive meaning than when adopted to ex- 
press the simple act of moving forward or upward or 
downward. As understood in the present highly-utili- 
tarian age, it means improvement in art, in science, in 
mechanics, in war, and in all the agencies that can con- 
tribute to the accumulation of wealth and power. It 
means, too, the adoption of style, the growth of new 
and, we venture to say, in a large degree vitiated tastes, 
the appropriation of luxurious living, and an' added 
charm to the masses of society for the so-called pleas- 
ures of earth, and it would be strange, therefore, if it 
were not absorptive in a most positive degree. But 
we may perhaps be assisted in our definition of the 
word if we quote from Ford's " Broken Heart," where 
he says : 

" Let me wipe off this honorable dew, 
Although the popular blast 
Hath reared thy name up to bestride a cloud, 
Or progress in the chariot of the sun." 

196 



THE ITINERANCY. 



197 



And it is with this understanding of the term, and 
in presence of the vast progress of which Ave are in the 
habit of boasting, that men are quietly discussing the 
proposition which we have stated. 

We would err if we assumed that there is any less 
of the appearance or profession of religion now than 
of yore. It is respectable and in a large degree fashion- 
able to be considered religious, even though one should 
be connected with the once-despised Methodist Church ; 
besides which, the law T of the land requires that we 
should, in a certain sense, believe ourselves to be re- 
ligious. But the inquiry to which we have referred is 
also, like the term which we have been considering, of 
much wider scope than the simple word would seem 
to suggest. It is as to genuine vital Christianity, for 
which Mr. Wesley and the Methodists of the olden 
time contended, and in search of and to promulgate 
which he left the Established Church in which he had 
been reared. According to the most comprehensive 
definition of the word, every man who believes in the 
existence of God, in the revelation of His will to man, 
and in man's obligation to obey the will of God and 
keep His commandments, is religious. In China, 
where the worship is of idols, belief in and conformity 
to the doctrines of Confucius is religion ; in Utah, God 
and the Book of Mormon, polygamy included, is reli- 
gion; while in Turkey it is God and Mahomet, his 
prophet; but what people here are inquiring about 
is absolute godliness, and the genuine piety that pre- 
fers one to walk with Christ rather than the world. 

17* 



198 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



These thoughts crowd upon us when considering the 
subject of 

THE ITINERANCY 

as a specialty in Methodism, of which a good many of 
the brethren are tiring. A denominational journal, 
published in New York, not long since contained an 
article somewhat severely criticising this particular fea- 
ture, and in fact demanding its abolition or modification 
in so far as concerns the metropolitan churches. It was 
not, however, a Methodist publication, and it may be, 
therefore, that its censoriousness was altogether gratui- 
tous; but inasmuch as it affected to represent some 
Methodist sentiment, and referred to a circumstance by 
way of illustration, it is worth while to repeat the inci- 
dent. 

A New York Methodist, who is said to occupy a 
" high position in commercial circles," lost a greatly- 
beloved daughter, ten or twelve years of age. After 
she was buried he said to a friend, " I am sick of 
Methodism." " Why ?" was the question. " Because 
it gave me no pastor for my child. The one whom my 
daughter had learned to know best was gone to a dis- 
tant city in another Conference. I sent for him and 
had him come to her. Our present minister she knew 
but little of, and I did not care, for I knew that soon 
he would be sent away and another stranger would 
come in his place. I think," he added, " I shall go 
over to Dr. Hall's Church. I can have a feeling of 
permanency in that Church which I cannot have in the 
Methodist." 



Old John Street Church, New York City. 



THE ITINERANCY. 



199 



It is scarcely within the design of these sketches to 
criticise the position of this brother, and we have nar- 
rated the circumstance simply as an illustration. We 
may, however, propound the query, What has the itin- 
erancy done for Methodism ? or, better, What has it 
not done? We venture to assert that without the 
operation, influence, and power of the itinerancy during 
the century that has lapsed since its origination by Mr. 
Wesley, Methodism ere this would have proved an abor- 
tion. As well might a farmer sit under his porch all day 
gazing at the heavens, from the rising to the setting of 
the sun, and expect anything else than a crop of weeds, 
as to have undertaken the establishment of Methodism 
without the work of itinerant preachers. By these only 
could the ground have been prepared for cultivation ; 
by them only could the seed of Gospel truth have been 
sowed broadcast among all the people ; and by the itin- 
erant preaching of Methodism only could be gathered 
such a harvest as has been stored away, not only in the 
granaries of the Church on earth, but in Heaven. 

There are no doubt many Methodists, especially in 
the large cities, who sympathize in sentiment with the 
New York brother to whose case we have referred. 
To such the system which requires the preacher to be 
alternated at the end of every three years presents two 
marked objections. These are, first, the necessity for 
receiving and tolerating, even for so long as the stipu- 
lated period, a minister of ordinary, or, perhaps, very 
poor, qualifications; second, the severance from one 
who responds to all the requirements that go to make 



200 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



up the graceful, pleasing, and popular preacher. But 
do not such as argue against the itinerancy see that they 
are really falling away from, and arguing against, Meth- 
odism itself? Suppose they would pause for a moment, 
and mark the steps of that progress with which we in- 
troduced this chapter. Let them glance back at the 
old church of St. George, with its barren walls and 
board benches, and then to the palatial establishments 
at Broad and Arch, and Spring Garden and Twentieth 
Streets, and as they sit in the luxuriously-cushioned 
seats, listening to the pealing notes of the organ, ask 
themselves if this is the Methodism of Wesley, of 
Fletcher, of Asbury, of Jesse Lee, of Freeborn Gar- 
retson, of Henry Boehm, of Ezekiel Cooper, Abbott, 
Webster, Owings, and the great army of the dead who 
were converted to God under the itinerant preachers 
who posted from village to village, from county to 
county, and state to state, bearing with them blessings 
and a free salvation to the lost world of mankind. 
Certainly, we must confess that the itinerant system 
has its disadvantages ; but, then, what situation in life 
is there that is exempt therefrom? It must be con- 
ceded, too, that there are preachers that are improperly 
or unfortunately assigned, and who injure, and in some 
cases measurably break down, the society to which they 
are sent, but this is a remediable circumstance ; besides 
which, it is one that other denominations that do not 
itinerate are at times subjected to. 



THE ITINERANCY. 



201 



A CASE IN POINT 

occurs to us as now existing in Saratoga, New York, 
with a Presbyterian society. The pastor had been in 
charge for several years, and it was felt that the society 
was weakening under his ministrations, and " the official 
members," as we term them, put their heads together to 
see what could be done about it. They didn't want to 
dismiss him summarily, and yet they didn't want to 
keep him, and so an extremely bright idea took posses- 
sion of the brethren, — they would reduce his salary a 
thousand dollars a year; and this they did, and the 
preacher, having a proper conception of the shrinkage 
processes which had been going on since the close of 
the war, considered the act a perfectly legitimate one, 
and continued his preaching, doing the best he could 
for another year. But this was not what the brethren 
intended, and so, being no better satisfied at the end of 
the following year, they determined to give the screw 
another turn, and resolved on a further reduction of a 
thousand dollars, which brought the poor man's salary 
down to fifteen hundred dollars a year; and, good- 
natured soul that he is, he seems to be in utter igno- 
rance of the cause of this fit of economy on the part 
of the official members, and still " sticks." Now, if the 
Presbyterians had the Methodist system of itinerating 
in operation, this brother would, doubtless, be doing 
effective work on a circuit where the people might like 
him well enough. 



202 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE ITINERANCY SYSTEM 

is, without doubt, due to Whitefield, albeit that great 
preacher was never connected with a Methodist Con- 
ference.* It was he, however, who, although but just 

* Whitefield differed from Mr. Wesley in reference to doctrinal 
points, and for a time their line so diverged as that the relations 
which had at first existed between them were greatly disturbed ; 
but the friendship of these two great reformers was subsequently 
re-established on a firm and enduring basis, each maintaining 
his own peculiar belief. Mr. Wesley held to the Armenian view 
which forms the basis of the Methodist doctrine, while White- 
field adopted and held to the Calvinistic or Augustinian view ; 
and, as many readers may not understand or appreciate the point 
at which these two great men diverged, we state the Calvinistic 
doctrine. 

It asserts " predestination" to be u the eternal decree of God, 
by which he hath determined in himself what he would have to 
become of every individual of mankind, for they are not all cre- 
ated with a similar destiny ; but eternal life is foreordained for 
some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, 
being created for one or the other of these ends, we say he is pre- 
destinated either to life or death. We affirm that this counsel, 
so far as it concerns the elect, is founded on his gratuitous mercy, 
totally irrespective of human merit ; but that of those whom he 
devotes to condemnation the gate of life is closed by a just and 
irreprehensible but incomprehensible judgment.' 7 

Calvin denies, however, that his doctrine makes God the author 
of sin. He says, " Their perdition depends on the divine predesti- 
nation in such a manner that the cause and matter of it are found 
in themselves. For the first man fell because the Lord had de- 
termined it should so happen. The reason of this determination 
is unknown to us. Man, therefore, falls according to the appoint- 
ment of Divine Providence, but he falls by his own fault." 

Mr. Bancroft says, 11 The political character of Calvinism, 



THE ITINERANCY. 



203 



ordained by the Established Church, first went out into 
the highways and the fields to preach Christ and Him 
crucified, calling sinners to repentance. It was in 1739 
that, clutching the banner of the cross and bearing it 
aloft, Mr. Whitefield began his campaign in the open 
air, preaching at first to the colliers and such others as 
gathered at Kingswood, shortly after which, in the same 
year, he made his second visit to America, and preached 
to vast crowds from the Hudson River to the Gulf. 

The first appearance of " circuits" in connection with 
English Methodism was in 1746, when there were seven. 
In 1770 the number was sixty, America being one of 
tftem. The number of circuits now in Great Britain is 
nearly seven hundred, and even in the cities this ar- 
rangement of the work is still preserved, several of the 
principal churches being embraced in a circuit. 

The first itinerant preacher in Ireland was Thomas 
Williams, who began work there in 1747, being fol- 
lowed shortly (within the same year) by Mr. Wesley, 
who found two hundred and eighty members in con- 
nection. Mr. Charles Wesley followed in a short time 
after his brother, and purchased the first preaching- 
house the Irish Methodists had, which was at a place 



which, with one consent, and with instinctive judgment, the 
monarchs of that day feared as republicanism, and which Charles 
II. declared 4 a religion unfit for a gentleman,' is expressed in 
a single word, — Predestination and he adds, " To advance in- 
tellectual freedom Calvinism absolutely denied the sacrament 
of ordination, thus breaking up the monopoly of priestcraft, and 
scattering the ranks of superstition." 



204 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



called "Dolphin's Barn," in the city of Dublin. Charles 
Wesley went, after this, to Cork, where he had for awhile 
a rather rough experience, and was arrested as a dis- 
turber of the peace. A bill of indictment was found 
against him, in which he was charged in the usual tech- 
nical terms as " a person of ill fame, a vagabond, and 
a common disturber of His Majesty's peace." In that 
city the term " swaddlers" was applied to the Method- 
ists, a nickname that grew out of a text used by one of 
the preachers, namely, " Ye shall find a babe wrapped 
in swaddling clothes lying in a manger." 

The itinerancy was inaugurated in Limerick by 
Bobert Swindell, in 1789, and not long after that 
date circuits were established in the various localities 
in Ireland where the preaching had been introduced, 
and at the death of Mr. Wesley, in 1791, there were 
seventy-five preachers travelling the Irish circuits, with 
a membership of about fifteen thousand. 

IN AMERICA 

the itinerancy was of course coeval with the introduction 
of Methodism. It was the germ, the root, as it has 
been since the tree itself ; and when it shall no longer 
exist the great fabric of Methodism, whose colossal pro- 
portions now tower up toward heaven, will crumble and 
decay. We do not undertake to say that the modifi- 
cation or abandonment of the itinerancy would produce 
what is pathologically known as " shock," which results 
in death, but it would put an end to its progress, a 
circumstance that would necessarily produce decay. 



THE ITINERANCY. 



205 



The itinerancy is not only the supply-pipe of Meth- 
odism, but the great generating-furnace. It is the pro- 
pelling power as well as the sheet-anchor of the Church. 
Through it nearly three million souls are to-day re- 
corded as ranged under its banner in the United States 
alone. Its condition, its comforts, its wealth, and its 
humanizing agencies have increased in degrees that are 
commensurate to the progress of which we have spoken. 
If it does not dominate all other Protestant relations, 
it excels in numbers any one of them, and the approxi- 
mations of the last two or three decades of time are 
suggestive of its eventually excelling in numbers the 
aggregate Protestant membership of the country ; and 
to the itinerancy is this magnificent result due. What 
a light has been thrown into the darkened places of the 
land by the Methodist travelling preacher as he wended 
his way over the circuit ! and how many, oh, how many 
thousand thirsting hearts have been refreshed by his 
periodical visits ! We have heard Mr. Rusling say that 
during his first year, when on the Hamburg (New Jer- 
sey) circuit, the people would frequently follow him 
from one preaching-place to another. Taking their 
homely lunch-basket in hand, a little company would 
follow the tracks of his horse, coming up with him 
some hours after he had reached the next station, and, 
remaining there until he had preached and was ready to 
move forward again, they would retrace their way to 
the humble home in the forest that was made glad by 
the inspiration derived from the preacher. Bishop 
Simpson, in his Cyclopaedia, referring to the itine- 

18 



206 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



rancy says, " It does not claim for its peculiar order a 
direct Divine sanction, and yet it does claim that it 
follows essentially the example of Christ and of his 
Apostles; and no one of them, for any considerable 
time, remained in charge of a single congregation or 
preached to the same people. It is difficult to under- 
stand how the command, 6 Go into all the world and 
preach my Gospel to every creature/ could be success- 
fully carried out unless an itinerant system were to be 
some time adopted," and Mr. Wesley claimed that long 
experience had proved that " a frequent exchange of 
teachers is best." " This preacher," said he, " has one 
talent, that another; no one whom I have ever yet 
known has all the talents which are needful for begin- 
ning, continuing, and perfecting the work of grace in a 
whole congregation." We should regret very much to 
feel that there was any great danger of a change in this 
system. True, as has hitherto been stated, Methodism 
in the cities is vastly different from what it was afore- 
time, — not in doctrine ; we hope not in vitality ; but in 
style and appreciation certainly. 

Rev. J. B. Finley narrates an incident in the career 
of Asbury which indicated his fear in this regard, and 
it is given as referring to a possible contingency of a 
future " generation of Methodists." The bishop, in 
company with Rev. J. W. Bond, attended a camp- 
meeting in Ohio in 1814, and the latter gentleman de- 
siring to visit some friends at Urbana, insisted on the 
bishop's accompanying him, and having preached there 
with great effect and results, the two gentlemen pro- 



AN ANECDOTE OF ASBURV. 



207 



ceeded to Springfield. They stopped in that town with 
a Methodist family, and as they passed into the parlor 
they found the daughter with some young friends, all 
gayly dressed, at the piano. "The bishop took a seat, 
and directly the father and mother of the young lady 
came in, and then followed the grandfather and grand- 
mother. When the bishop took the hand of the old 
lady he held it, and, looking her in the face, while a 
tear dropped from his eye, he said, 6 1 was looking to 
see if I could trace in the lineaments of your face the 
likeness of your sainted mother. She belonged to the 
first generation of Methodists. She lived a holy life, 
and died a most triumphant death. You/ continued 
the bishop, i belong to the second generation of Meth- 
odists; your son and his wife are the third; and that 
young girl, your granddaughter, represents the fourth. 
She has learned to dress, and play on the piano, and is 
versed in all the arts of fashionable life, and, I presume, 
at this rate of progress, the fifth generation of Meth- 
odists will be sent to a dancing-school/ " This reproof 
is said to have made a profound impression, but if the old 
campaigner could now come back to earth and mingle 
among the fashionable Methodists of the seventh genera- 
tion, he would probably conclude that even a dancing- 
school is preferable to some of the haunts visited by 
those who profess to be of the Church of God. But 
such we, in justice, perhaps, ought to say, with Shak- 
speare, are — 

11 Like a villain with a smiling face, 
A goodly apple, rotten at the core." 



CHAPTER XX. 



Camp-Meetings. 

Many persons have affected to believe, and many 
yet indulge the hope, that the establishment founded 
by Wesley will be the great Church of the future. 
That there is apparently ground on which to base such 
an expectation may not be doubted. The simplicity of 
its doctrines, their close connection with the life and 
teachings of Christ, their adaptation to all conditions 
of life, and the close relation they would seem to estab- 
lish between the Creator and the creature, man, gives 
to Methodism such claims to universal recognition as 
that one might well hope for its acceptance by all na- 
tions and all peoples as the chosen tabernacle of the 
Most High, and yet, in the light of what we term the 
world's " progress," we may well doubt if a universality 
of doctrine will ever be reached. We have heard it 
stated from the pulpit that there will be no great Church 
of the future. Of course the declaration was made as 
an opinion or belief ; but it was not wildly uttered, nor 
left without a measure of proof drawn from Holy 
Writ with which to sustain it. The tendency of the 
world for many years past has been to what is termed 
latitudinarianism, not only in theology, but in morals, 
in politics, and in all else that concerns the ordering and 
208 



CAMP-MEETINGS. 



209 



regulation of society ; but however it may be as to the 
Church of the future, it is certain that the impress of 
Methodism will constitute the most important factor of 
Protestantism in the coming centuries. 

Among the very important agencies in promoting the 
establishment of the Methodist Church and spreading 
its doctrines has been 

THE CAMP-MEETING, 

which, however, was, for a good many years, greatly 
misunderstood by the general public. Bishop Simpson, 
in his Cyclopaedia, says the first camp-meeting was 
held in the summer of 1799, on the banks of the Red 
River, in Kentucky, and thus gives the origin of it : 
" At a sacramental occasion, held by the Presbyterian 
Church, sermons were delivered by both Presbyterians 
and Methodists, and such remarkable effects followed 
as produced extensive public excitement. The congre- 
gation was sometimes melted to tears of sorrow, and 
then gave utterance to shouts of joy. People came from 
surrounding sections of country to witness and attend 
the meeting. The house being too small to contain 
them, a stand was erected in the grove, and people came 
in wagons, bringing with them their provisions and 
clothing, to remain a few days upon the ground. The 
success of this meeting led to others, in which Presby- 
terians, Baptists, and Methodists participated, and from 
this union of the denominations they were called i gen- 
eral meetings/ " This union of effort, however, does 
not seem to have continued long, as a very decided 

18* 



210 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



opposition to them sprung up among the Presbyterians 
and Baptists, who very shortly abandoned all connec- 
tion with such meetings, and left the field to be occupied 
exclusively by the Methodists. 

Rev. Henry Boehm, the contemporary, friend, and 
often-time companion of Asbury in his itinerancy as 
bishop, in his " Reminiscences," says that "camp-meet- 
ings had their origin in Tennessee in 1799," the same 
year as mentioned by Bishop Simpson. Boehm's state- 
ment is that " two brothers named Magee, one a Meth- 
odist and the other a Presbyterian minister, had the 
high honor of originating them," and he adds that he 
was well acquainted with John Magee, and heard him 
preach, and that he travelled many miles with him. It 
is probable that BoehWs statement is the more accurate 
of the two, because he was, to an extent, at least, per- 
sonally cognizant of the facts ; although it may be that 
both have reference to the same meeting, yet locating it 
in different States, or, possibly, camp-meetings were held 
in both States during the summer of the same year. 

A few years later camp-meetings were introduced 
east of the mountains. Mr. Thatcher held what is 
understood to be the first camp-meeting in the East at 
Carmel, New York, in 1804, and in 1805 Jesse Lee 
organized one in a grove near where the town of Smyrna, 
Delaware, now stands, where, it is said, " there were 
multitudes of tents and thousands came to the feasts of 
tabernacles." The preachers at this meeting were, be- 
sides Mr. Lee, John Chalmers, Joseph Totten, Thomas 
Ware, James Aitkins, Richard Lyons, William Bishop, 



CAMP-MEETINGS. 



211 



Ephraim Chambers, and Richard Sneath ; and Mr. Lee, 
in his account of it, says that " about two hundred were 
converted among the whites and many among the 
blacks." The camp-meetings of the present day are 
very different from those of the olden time. Like the 
churches, they have improved, not only in style, but in 
architecture, strange as may seem the application of that 
term to a meeting in the woods. In many localities the 
primitive character of the camp-meeting is still con- 
tinued, the persons attending bringing with them not 
only their provisions and clothing, but their canvas 
tents. At Ocean Grove, however, Martha's Vineyard, 
and some other localities, camp-meeting towns have 
been built, with tents of boards and elaborately con- 
structed cottages, and chapels in which the people wor- 
ship when the weather is too inclement to hold service 
on the ground and in the open air. 

LORENZO DOW, 

whom many of our readers will doubtless remember, 
not only as a most eccentric but unique preacher of 
Methodism, undertook to introduce camp-meetings in 
England, at the beginning of the present century, and 
for a time succeeded, but they have not attained to any 
marked degree of popularity there. It was in fact not 
long after Dow begun his efforts that a spirit of deter- 
mined hostility to such meetings was developed, and, 
the matter being brought up before the Wesleyan Con- 
ference, resolutions were passed declaring its judgment 
that, " even supposing such meetings to be allowable in 



212 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 

America, they are highly improper in England, and 
likely to be productive of considerable mischief," and 
the Conference further resolved that " we disclaim any 
connection with them." This action need not surprise 
us, for it is entirely consistent with the more conserva- 
tive notions that prevail in England, not only in refer- 
ence to church matters, but all else. It was the same 
sentiment, to which we have had occasion to refer here- 
tofore, that held Mr. Wesley back for a time, the tradi- 
tions of the " Established Church" having an influence 
in England that was never manifested, or indeed at all 
felt, among American Methodists. But Dow persevered 
in his efforts, and a number of the societies persisted in 
holding and attending camp-meetings, despite the utter- 
ance of the Conference, and out of its effort to control 
the matter grew a secession. Certain members who had 
been active in holding and attending camp-meetings 
were subjected to the discipline, and these, with such 
as sympathized with them, organized what has been 
since known as " Primitive Methodism." This is a 
denomination that has not been known to any very 
considerable extent in this country, but we have never- 
theless seen companies of men and women so connected, 
in the interior of the State, marching along the highway 
singing hymns and praising God. Many persons in 
this country and in England considered 

DOW A LUNATIC. 



He was, certainly, a strange composition of human 
nature. He was "a Connecticut Yankee," born at 



LORENZO DOW. 



213 



Coventry, in that State, in October, 1777. His anxiety 
on the subject of religion began when he was but four- 
teen years of age. He appears to have been from boy- 
hood a dreamer, and was greatly troubled in early life 
by strange visions while sleeping, many of which are 
recorded in his journal. So greatly was he agitated 
and distressed for a time by these dreams and visions, 
as he tells us, that he frequently debated in his mind 
whether or not it was best that he should take his own 
life, and on several occasions was on the point of doing 
so.* Previous to the beginning of the present century 
there were strange and ludicrously extravagant reports 
current in the section of country where he lived con- 
cerning the Methodists. It was said that they preached 
strange and heretical doctrines, and that they were a 
mischievous and dangerous people, and so highly colored 
was the nature of these rumors that the Methodists 
were supposed to look unlike other people. After a 
while, and while Dow was yet a lad, one of the preach- 
ers extended his tour into the heart of the great onion- 
growing State, and his appointment having been an- 
nounced, the young dreamer was led by curiosity to gc 
as far as the door of the meeting-house, with a view, 

* On one occasion, when greatly distressed by conflicting views, 
he loaded a gun and repaired to the woods, fully determined, as 
he tells us, to end his sufferings by committing suicide. When 
he had gone some distance into the woods, he thought he heard 
a voice saying, " Stop ! consider what you are about to do ; if you 
end your life, you are undone forever." He paused, and a new 
train of thought predominating, he retraced his steps, returned 
to his home, and put away the gun. 



214 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



not to hear, but merely to steal a glance at the uncouth 
new-comer, who, it was supposed, would turn the neigh- 
borhood topsy-turvy with his heresies. Finding the 
preacher to be like other men, and his doctrines conform- 
ing very much to his own speculations and beliefs, he 
followed the Methodists and was shortly converted, and 
at about the year 1796, after great mental anxiety and 
severe struggles with the enemy, and despite the protests 
of his family, he went forth to preach. In 1804 he 
married his wife, " Peggy," who accompanied him in 
most of his wanderings. Peggy seems to have been a 
woman after his own heart, and was a person of some- 
thing more than ordinary mind. Dow was extremely 
eccentric. His appearance was grotesque. He wore his 
hair long like a woman, except that he didn't put it up, 
and his beard, when we last saw him, reached well-nigh 
down to his waist. His dress was conformable, plain 
as was possible, and generally quite seedy enough.* The 
last time we saw and heard him was when he preached 
in a little brick building on the south side of Christian 
Street, above Fourth, or, perhaps, Fifth, which was 
known as " Mount Zion." We think it belonged to 
Elder Plummer, and the society worshipping in it were 
called Plummerites, or Hard-Shell Baptists. 

* He declared that the practice of dressing in black by the 
ministers of most denominations was a perpetuation of one of 
the popish customs, which was taken from the false prophets, who 
borrowed it from the true prophets, who wore that color when 
mourning in sackcloth. 



LORENZO DOW. 



215 



PEGGY DOW 

was as plain as a pipe-stem, and was, without doubt, a 
valuable support to Lorenzo. She wrote " The Vicissi- 
tudes of Life," which was published with the journal 
of her husband, the two productions being given to the 
public under the title of "The Dealings of God, Man, 
and the Devil, as Exemplified in the Life, Experience, 
and Travels of Lorenzo Dow in a Period of Over 
Half a Century," etc., etc. 

To say that the Dows were extraordinary people 
would be to use a feeble phraseology. Lorenzo was 
sui generis. He was a Methodist, but yet not recognized 
by them. He was at one time licensed to preach by 
the presiding elder, but was never, so far as we can 
learn, received into the Conference. His style of 
preaching was aggressive in the extreme, declamatory, 
and often bordering on recklessness. He was Quixotic. 
He travelled and preached from Canada to the Gulf of 
Mexico, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi val- 
ley, and to England and Ireland, and in both countries 
very many professed conversion under his preaching. 
His hostility to the Church of Rome was unbounded, 
and his denunciations of the Sons of Loyola were 
really furious. He termed himself "the Cosmopolite," 
and he dubbed the advocates of Calvinism " a double L 
pastman," a phraseology which was original with him- 
self, and meaningless, doubtless, to most others. He 
refused to submit to the discipline of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and hence was an outsider; but 



216 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



they encouraged him, nevertheless. There was no 
culture about his preaching. His biting sarcasm and 
bitter invective often brought him into trouble, but he 
always managed to find a way out, his adroitness and 
skill under such circumstances serving to give many 
ignorant persons an idea of something akin to super- 
natural power. When about leaving England on a 
certain occasion he was being hunted by officers of the 
law, who were in close pursuit of him on account of 
some charge that had been preferred against him, prob- 
ably for disturbing the peace by his preaching on the 
streets. When he reached the dock it was found that 
an accident of some kind would detain the vessel on 
which he had taken passage for a few hours. Another 
vessel bound to America was just casting off her lines 
as he reached the wharf, and he stepped on board of 
her ; and as she sailed away he could see the officers 
boarding the other ship. His career reminds us of 
Sue's Wandering Jew. He would make an appoint- 
ment to be at a certain place three or six months in ad- 
vance, and when everybody had forgotten it, by reason 
of having received no tidings of him afterward, he would 
drop down at the designated place and at the exact time 
appointed, as though he had been spilled out from a 
passing cloud. Time and space seemed as nothing to 
him, and, although of frail constitution, his power to 
endure hardship was most extraordinary. One of his 
printed sermons, which we have seen, is entitled " How 
to Curse and Swear, Lie, Cheat, and Kill, according to 
Law." In 1821 he was arrested in Charleston, South 



LORENZO DOW. 



217 



Carolina, on a charge of libelling Eev. Wm. Hammett, 
pastor of a Primitive Methodist Church in that city.* 
The trial lasted for several days, and he was finally 
convicted, although Mr. Hammett had died meanwhile ; 
and the Court, in consideration of the punishment he 
had endured by being some time in prison, and the 
cost he had been at, sentenced him to pay a fine of one 
dollar, the cost of prosecution, and undergo an imprison- 
ment of twenty-four hours in the county jail. He died 
at Washington, in February, 1834, where he went for 
the purpose of endeavoring to arouse the government to 
some action against what he believed to be the unlaw- 
ful and dangerous machinations of the Romish Church. 
Strange, strange, incomprehensible creature was Dow. 

* This was a curious and quite a novel case. Mr. Hammett had 
been a preacher connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and at about the time of O'Kelley's defection he also seceded, and 
with the aid of some other preachers established several societies 
of Primitive Methodists. Some years subsequently he died, and 
Dow, without any personal knowledge as to the facts, but from 
hearsay, stated in one of his books or pamphlets that he was in 
the habit of issuing that Mr. Hammett had died drunk. It was 
some years after the death of Mr. Hammett that the eccentric 
preacher again visited the Palmetto State, when he was arrested 
and, as before mentioned, tried and convicted for libel or defama- 
tion of character. The trial attracted much attention at the 
time, the Commonwealth and the defendant being both ably rep- 
resented, and Dow made a lengthy address to the Court himself. 
Laymen argued that there could be no libel of a dead man, but 
the law said it was a crime against the State, and that the party 
against whom the libel was uttered would be only a witness if 
living. Dow paid the fine ; the costs were remitted by the offi- 
cers ; and the governor of the State pardoned him on the same day. 
K 19 



CHAPTER XXL 



Asbury on Church Location. 

Earnest as was the good Asbury in his advocacy 
of plainness and simplicity in all things, he was never- 
theless extremely practical concerning the selection of 
means for promoting the cause in which he was engaged. 
As to churches, while he preferred that they should 
be perfectly plain, he insisted that they be placed in 
eligible and prominent positions, so that not only might 
they be easy of access, but inviting to their entrance. 
He complained that many of the first houses of worship 
were difficult of access, and, conversing on this subject, 
he said, " Some benevolent man would give us a site, 
the ground being so poor you could not raise mullein 
stalks on it, and we would thank him and erect a house 
upon it where the people would be sure not to find it. 
Perhaps the donor's object might be pure benevolence 
or," he added with a quiet sarcasm, " to keep the Meth- 
odists out of the village ; other denominations," he said, 
" knew better, and have pursued a wiser course." And 
then, referring to the Episcopal churches, he said, 
" How prominent are they, — not in lanes or by-streets, 
but in the most public places and, concluding his re- 
marks on this subject, he added, " I tell you what it is : 
if we wish to catch fish, we must go where they are, or 
218 



ASBURY ON CHURCH LOCATION. 219 



where they are likely to come. We had better pay 
money for a site in a central position in a city, town, or 
village, than have them give us half a dozen lots for 
nothing in some by-street or lane." It is very mani- 
fest that our Methodist friends have acted on this ad- 
vice, and that they have greatly improved upon it in so 
far as the character of their buildings is concerned. 
When the present " Union" church was built (then con- 
sidered the finest in the country belonging to the de- 
nomination), at a leaders' meeting held just previous to 
its completion the following preamble and resolutions 
were submitted and voted on : 

" As, in addition to the numerous mercies with which 
God has favored us as a society, we have the prospect 
of obtaining a commodious and convenient house of 
worship, and as this meeting deem it of importance that 
plainness, simplicity, and uniformity may be observed 
therein, they resolve, 

" First. That in our opinion no individual or indi- 
viduals should at any time place or cause to be placed 
in the church cushions of any kind. 

u Second. That no cushion should be placed in the 
pulpit for any purpose. 

" Third. That no instrumental music shall be intro- 
duced into the church at any time. 

u Fourth. That the above be submitted to our breth- 
ren, the trustees, for their concurrence." 

This was too much for the spirit of improvement of 
even that period, say forty-six years ago, and the yeas 
and nays being called for on the first resolution the yeas 



220 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



were but four, while there were eight votes in the 
negative, and so further effort to restrict the brethren 
in this regard was at once abandoned. Whether the 
cushions have been since introduced or not we are 
unable to say, but it is certain that the sonorous 
tones of a very fine organ are regularly enjoyed by 
those who worship in that beautiful temple of Metho- 
dism. 

The years that marked the close of the three first 
decades of the present century were fruitful of the ex- 
tension of Philadelphia Methodism. We do not notice 
that there were any special " revivals" of religion, but 
the period was certainly characterized by an increased 
development of enterprise in providing the means for 
public worship. For some years previous to 1830 
" West Philadelphia" was but a sparsely-settled neigh- 
borhood, and the few Methodists that resided there were 
either obliged to trudge their way pretty well down 
town on the eastern side of the river to enjoy preaching, 
or put up with such occasional favors as were meted out 
in a small school-house building by preachers from the 
Chester circuit. At this time the population of that 
now magnificent portion of Philadelphia was mainly 
confined to two streets, or rather " roads," as they were 
termed, the West Chester Road, now Market Street, 
and the Lancaster Turnpike, now Lancaster Avenue, 
and there was no Methodist society organization. As 
early as 1827 three members of the old Academy con- 
gregation moved to West Philadelphia with their fami- 
lies, and they formed a class, gathering the few scattered 



FRUITFUL YEARS. 



221 



sheep they could find into it, but nothing more was 
accomplished, except to obtain, as before remarked, 
preaching at intervals in the school-house ; but in 1829 
or 1830, Mr. John Buckman, another member of the 
Academy, and a gentleman of means, purchased the 
property on which the Pennsylvania Hospital for the 
Insane now stands, and removed his family thereto. 
Mr. Buckman at once realized the need of church ac- 
commodations on the west side, and with great prompt- 
ness he set to w r ork to supply the want. He was not 
only a man of means but of enterprise, and, as that 
was a characteristic of the Academy people, he soon 
found enough of them to join him in the work. It 
was during the pastorate of Mr. Higgins, whose name 
alone was an inspiration, and very shortly after remov- 
ing to his rural home, Mr. Buckman succeeded in 
organizing a new church movement, forming a new 
society with a board of trustees made up from Acad- 
emy members and those of one or two of the other 
churches. 

There was plenty of vacant ground for sale in West 
Philadelphia in those days, and it could be bought very 
cheaply, and shortly after the new board had been or- 
ganized a lot was purchased fronting on an intermediate 
thoroughfare, now known as Ludlow Street, and forth- 
with the work of erecting a new church edifice was 
begun. The new society, which is entitled to the 
distinction of being the Mother Church of the 
Twenty-fourth and Twenty-seventh Wards, was en- 
titled 

19* 



222 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



ASBURY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 

and its usefulness and progress have been commensurate 
with the spirit which it must have derived from its im- 
mediate ancestry. The new church was completed and 
dedicated within the year 1830, and the society will 
doubtless celebrate its Semi-Centennial Anniversary dur- 
ing the coming year (1880). The lot on which the old 
church was constructed was a large one, extending south 
to the line of Chestnut Street as since laid out and 
opened, and, the congregation having largely increased 
within the first twenty years of its existence, the church 
was rebuilt in 1850, with its front facing on Chestnut 
Street. 

In 1831, while Mr. Cookman was in charge at St. 
George's, a missionary spirit of enterprise was developed 
among the Ebenezer people. At this period the irregu- 
lar street which skirted the head of the wharves in the 
old South wark district was a popular Sunday resort for 
large numbers of workingmen — a sort of loitering 
promenade — to which very many respectable men were 
drawn to enjoy the river breeze and view the craft that 
floated on its bosom. Fishing from the wharves and 
rowing and sailing boats about the harbor were indulged 
in to a considerable extent, and " Kaighn's Point," on 
the Jersey side, being a place of popular resort for 
pleasure on the Sabbath, very many persons were at- 
tracted to the old South Street Ferry. From that point 
and above, down to the Navy Yard, was a strolling 
ground for the sailors, who made frequent visits to the 



COOKMAN ON THE WHARF. 223 



groggeries that were met with all along the shore, but 
in the immediate vicinity of South and Shippen (now 
Bainbridge) Streets were some vile dens of profligacy and 
drunkenness. On Shippen Street, east of Front, was a 
celebrated dance-house known in those days as " Dandy 
Hall," into which the sailors were inveigled, made 
drunk, and generally robbed of what money they had. 
Quarrelling and fighting were common to this neigh- 
borhood, if such we may term it, and some of the young 
men of Ebenezer were led to look upon this ground as 
a good field for missionary effort, and on a certain Sab- 
bath they met at the head of the wharves, between 
South and Shippen Streets, to begin operations, and 
determined to make a raid on what they had good reason 
to consider 

THE DEVIL'S STAMPING GKOUND ; 

and gathering some stones they piled them together and 
placing on them the " dish" of a huge pair of scales a 
preaching-stand was improvised. A small crowd, at- 
tracted by the novelty of the proceeding, gathered im- 
mediately, when hundreds came running to the spot in 
expectation of witnessing a fight. 

We do not know who it was that braved the lion in 
his den as preacher at the first of these meetings, but 
we remember that " 'Squire" John S. Bundick, who still 
lives, at the age of more than fourscore years, and dis- 
penses "Jersey justice" in South Camden, raised the 
hymn. The movement was followed up on the next 
Sabbath, when Mr. Cookman occupied the stand. It 



224 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW, 

is not difficult to imagine the effect of a sermon under 
such circumstances by that great preacher. He was a 
wonderful man as a pulpit orator, and, with a pile of 
stones for a pedestal on which to plant his feet and the 
heavens for a sounding board to his pulpit, he was, of 
all others, the man of his day to startle to conviction 
such a motley mass as was likely to be drawn together 
at such a locality and under such circumstances. Mr. 
Cookman selected his text from Isaiah iv. 1: "And 
in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, 
saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own 
apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take 
away our reproach." Following upon the open-air 
movement, a sail-loft was obtained on the wharf some- 
where between the two streets already mentioned, and 
on the Fourth of July a number of the young men 
who began the movement were engaged with saws 
and planes making seats for their homely temple, and 
here they hung out the Bethel flag of the house of 
God. Simultaneously with the renting of the sail-loft 
a new society was organized, and the offspring of Old 
Ebenezer was given the name of 

THE MAMNEftS ? BETHEL. 

We are not able to say precisely how long the new 
society continued to worship in the loft, but at some 
time subsequently they obtained a house on Shippen 
Street that had been used for a dwelling, and making 
such alterations as were needful they occupied it until 
the year 1845, when a very neat and substantial church 



MARINERS 1 BETHEL. 



225 



edifice was constructed on the corner of Shippen and 
Penn Streets. The situation here must have been some- 
what anomalous, not to say dramatic, in the olden time. 
The sounds of drunken revelry would float out from 
" Dandy Hall" into the house of God, and the prayers 
of the Christian band must necessarily have invaded 
this haunt of vice and sin. Especially must this have 
been so before the building of the new church edifice, 
but a better civilization has since obtained in that once 
desecrated neighborhood, and to-day the church building 
of 1845, deserted, stands alone, looking up, as it were, 
in mute desolation upon one of the mammoth manu- 
facturing establishments of the city. But change is 
everywhere — 

" On the forest's leafy pride, 
On the streamlet, glancing bright, 
On the jewell'd crown of night." 

And so during the year 1873 the brethren of Bethel 
began to consider whether or not there was a necessity 
for enlarging their field of work and getting into a lo- 
cality that would afford better scope for their enterprise. 
This question was finally determined in the affirmative, 
and during the year 1874 they commenced and com- 
pleted their present house of worship on Washington 
Street, above Second. It is an unusually fine and very 
large church edifice, constructed of hard gray stone, with 
a neat and tasteful parsonage adjoining, of the same 
material, and we are glad to learn, as we do from the 
present pastor, Rev. J. W. Langley, that the society is 
in a most flourishing condition, with a very large mem- 



226 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



bership. For several years after the organization of 
this society it appeared on the Conference record as the 
" South wark mission," and was supplied with preaching 
from St. George's charge. In 1835, when one hundred 
and fifty-eight members were reported, Rev. D. W. 
Bartine was the pastor, and in 1836-37, He v. John 
Woolson was in charge, and in 1838-40, Rev. Levin 
M. Prettyman being in charge, it was returned as the 
Mariners' Bethel, the membership in 1839 being stated 
at two hundred and twelve. The Mariners' Bethel is 
not much of a sailors' church now, although the wives 
of many seafaring men are members, and the young 
men of the society still maintain their interest in look- 
ing after " poor Jack" by going along the wharves on 
Sunday morning distributing tracts and inviting all who 
will, to come to Bethel and listen to the preaching of the 
Word. The older members of the society can refer to 
many interesting scenes and incidents of its history. 
There are, however, but few, very few, of the original 
members now left among us. Nearly half a century of 
time has been swallowed up in oblivion's murky waters 
since Cookman held forth to the greatly-mixed assem- 
blage that heard him on Shippen Street wharf ; and the 
only one of the pioneers in that movement whom we 
can now recall as wearing the habilaments of mortality 
is Mr. David H. Bowen, whose voice is still daily raised 
in prayer and thankfulness to the Giver of all Good 
for the lengthened years with which he has been blessed. 

We have said that the period immediately following 
the close of the third decade of the present century was 



MARINERS' BETHEL. 



227 



marked by much enterprise in Methodism. It was in 
1832 that Fifth Street Church was organized by Mr. 
Rusling, and in the same year, when the people were 
intensely alarmed on account of the appearance of the 
Asiatic cholera, that the brickyard movement which 
resulted in the establishment of the Western Methodist 
Episcopal Church was begun. In 1833, as has been 
already seen, St. Paul's was organized, and it was during 
the same year that the old Academy yielded to the 
march of progress and gave place to the present Union 
Methodist Episcopal church edifice, and within the same 
year Methodist churches were constructed in Manayunk 
and Frankford, then considered rural towns of the 
county. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Eev. Charles Pitman. 

" The heart of a statesman," said Napoleon, " must 
be in his head," and the late David Paul Brown, 
quoting the remark in the " Forum," said, " We may be 
permitted to add, 6 the head of an advocate must be in 
his heart/ " This may seem to some readers a contra- 
diction, but it is not by any means so, for while the 
heart of a statesman may, figuratively speaking, be in 
his head, the head of an advocate or an orator may very 
well be in his heart ; the idea, however, which the great 
Captain intended to express was, probably, that a states- 
man should have no heart, a condition which vast 
numbers of the people of the present day seem to have 
successfully reached. "The head without the heart," 
says the author of the " Forum," " if the comparison may 
be excused, is like a steam-engine without a boiler. 
Without the aid of the heart reason is cold, vapid, and 
comparatively worthless. The heart is the throne of 
the passions ; 'tis there we rule, are ruled, and must be 
won." And thus is the spirit of Methodism, and what 
we may not inaptly term the unction of its preaching, 
illustrated. It is because the head of the preacher is in 
his heart that his reasoning faculties are brightened ; 
that his power of language is stimulated, and that his 
228 



REV. CHARLES PITMAN. 



229 



supplications to the throne of the ever-living God are 
heard and answered. 

No man knew better the rule of heart-power than 
did David Paul Brown, and but few men of his own 
or any other time made more effective use of it as a 
forensic orator. It was from such a fountain that the 
utterances of the Apostle Paul flowed, when, in answer 
to the charge before the king that he was mad, he 
declared, " I am not mad, most noble Festus ; but speak 
forth the words of truth and soberness. For the king 
knoweth of these things/' Said he, " King Agrippa, 
believest thou the prophets? I know that thou be- 
lievest ;" and then concluding that wonderful speech, 
" I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that 
hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such 
as I am, except these bonds." In a very brief notice of 
the Rev. Charles Pitman, in Bishop Simpson's Cyclo- 
paedia, wherein, by the way, mention of the pioneer 
preachers of the olden time is rather conspicuous for 
its absence, the author says " multitudes hung upon his 
lips with delight, and were moved by his powerful ap- 
peals." Mr. Pitman was born in the neighborhood of 
Cookstown, New Jersey, in the year 1796, and was raised 
to farming pursuits. His education was about equal 
to that of the farmer boys of his time, but later in 
life he drank deeply of those everlasting springs by 
which the roots of the tree of universal knowledge are 
watered. He was converted early in life, and, develop- 
ing much apparent promise as a speaker, he was licensed 
in 1815 by the Quarterly Meeting for the New Mills, 

20 



230 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



New Jersey, circuit, to exhort, and in March, 1817, 
he was licensed as a local preacher. In 1818, when 
about twenty-two years of age, he was admitted into the 
New Jersey Conference as an itinerant and appointed 
to Trenton. In 1819-20 he was at Bergen, and in 
1821-22 at New Brunswick. In 1823-24 he was 
stationed at Bridgeton, after w T hich he was appointed 
presiding elder for the West New Jersey district, and 
filled that position during the years 1826-29, and being 
then transferred to the East Jersey district, he occupied 
the same relation until and including the year 1832, 
when he was transferred to the Philadelphia Conference 
and stationed at Union Church, where he remained 
during 1833-34. In 1835 he was agent for Dickin- 
son College, but entering again on active ministerial 
work, he w T as stationed at St. George's, where he was 
continued for two years. In 1838 he was at Eighth 
Street, and in 1839-40 again at Trenton. In 1841 he 
was appointed secretary of the Missionary Society and 
removed to New York; and, being subsequently re- 
elected from time to time, he filled that position with 
great acceptability and profit to the enterprise until the 
year 1850, when, his health failing rapidly, he was 
obliged to resign. 

As we remember Mr. Pitman in the prime of life Jie 
was a gentleman of more than usually prepossessing 
appearance. Well formed, of good height, well dressed 
and of dignified deportment, he at once claimed recog- 
nition as a man of more than ordinary ability and ac- 
quirements. Dark of complexion, his hair and eyes 



REV. CHARLES PITMAN. 



231 



were coal-black, and his voice, which was both mellow 
and sonorous, was peculiarly adapted to pulpit oratory. 

HIS MENTAL POWEKS 

were of a superior order, a fact which was perceptible 
at a glance. They were well balanced, too, and seemed 
to be within his control in an exceptional degree. His 
imaginative faculties were fine, and as a preacher of the 
Cross, for which he was greatly distinguished, he gave 
them such play as rendered his ministrations extremely 
effective. He illustrated most completely the idea of 
our old friend, David Paul Brown. Not only was Mr. 
Pitman's head in his heart, but every motion, every ges- 
ture, every impulse, seemed with him a heart emanation; 
and all who had the pleasure to hear him were made to 
feel that his every utterance was from the remotest re- 
cesses of the heart. He differed in a marked degree 
from many other Methodist preachers of his time. He 
was what we might term an orderly preacher, as com- 
pared with some others with whom we have met. He 
never ranted, nor could it hardly be said that he shouted, 
albeit he praised God many times with a loud voice. 
Earnest, zealous, and at times passionate, in his delivery, 
his bearing was ever marked by a profound sense of the 
solemnity of the occasion and the subject on which he 
dwelt. As a theologian he was logical and argumenta- 
tive, and not at all abstruse. He was a good contro- 
versialist, although many believed that in his discussion 
with Barns, to which we referred incidentally in our 
sketch of that rather unique preacher, Mr. Pitman 



232 METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



failed to vanquish his antagonist. No man would con- 
sider him as what Burke termed a political theologian. 
His favorite theme was the doctrine of the Atonement, 
and he preached " Christ and Him crucified" with such 
startling power as often brought many hundreds to their 
knees. 

Rev. James Ayres, general agent for the American 
Sunday-School Union for the Northwest, in a letter to 
the editor of Sprague's " American Pulpit," relates the 
following incident concerning his first meeting with 
Pitman : " I was passing through the streets of Bridge- 
ton, New Jersey, one evening, when I heard at a dis- 
tance a voice which sounded so sweetly that I was 
instinctively drawn in the direction of it. As I ad- 
vanced I saw the door of a house ajar, the weather 
being warm, and I soon learned that a minister was 
leading a religious class in a private room. I listened, 
and such was the mellowness of his voice and the unc- 
tion with which he spoke that I was perfectly entranced, 
and an impression was made upon my mind never to 
be effaced." 

HIS POWER AS A PREACHER. 

A most remarkable incident occurred on an occasion 
when Mr. Pitman was stationed at St. George's. We 
were not present, and may therefore narrate it imper- 
fectly. The house was crowded to its utmost capacity, 
as was generally the case when he preached. His text 
was as follows : " He that goeth forth and weepeth, 
bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with 



REV. CHARLES PITMAN. 



238 



rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him/' The speaker 
had consumed more than half his usual time, and his 
sermon was drawing to a close, when suddenly he 
seemed wrapt in clouds and darkness and was unable 
to proceed, and, turning in the pulpit with his face to 
the Avail, he fell upon his knees and broke forth in 
wrestling prayer with God for deliverance, and in an 
instant, as it were, there swept through the house and 
over the congregation a Divine influence and power 
such as had never before been witnessed in that church, 
and hundreds of the people fell upon their knees, cry- 
ing, " God be merciful to me a sinner !" This incident, 
we are told, was followed by a wonderful revival at 
old St. George's, during which several hundred persons 
professed conversion. 

Mr. Pitman was a methodical preacher, and arranged 
his sermons with great care, frequently writing them 
out, although never attempting to read them in public 
or to memorize them. His reason for this, as we have 
learned, was that he might thereby better impress the 
arrangement of his subject on his mind. He was a 
man of somewhat nervous temperament, and we should 
err greatly if we were to say that he w^as not ambitious. 
His ambition, however, was of a lofty character. He 
had his periods of elation, and was subject, like many 
other men, to occasional seasons of despondency. He 
was a good and fast friend, and, when in his best moods, 
genial and companionable. He was a close student and 
most industrious reader, and acquired during his life a 
very fine library. He was an earnest defender of the 

20* 



234 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



doctrines and discipline of Methodism, — a fact that was 
illustrated by his effort to subject Mr. Barns to the 
latter. He despised anything like witticisms in the 
pulpit, and held in perfect contempt such conduct as is 
sometimes witnessed, and which will not be too strongly 
characterized by the term buffoonery. His manner 
everywhere and under all circumstances was that of a 
gentleman, and his style of preaching, while sufficiently 
demonstrative, was calm, impressive, and convincing. 
He relied greatly on the power of prayer, and believed 
that when supplemented by faith it would wellnigh 
remove mountains. 

AS A BUSINESS MAN 

he was earnest, methodical, and enterprising, — a fact 
which was fully appreciated by the General Conference 
when it successively elected him to the position of mis- 
sionary secretary. He was extremely well fitted for 
that post, — his methodical habits, his love of order, and 
his earnest devotion to that cause rendered him par- 
ticularly the right man in the right place, and it is gen- 
erally conceded that the cause of missions was better 
promoted during his administration of the office than 
for years preceding. 

Rev. John Kennedy, in a letter written subsequent 
to the death of Pitman, said of him : " His entire min- 
isterial character was the subject of admiration with 
multitudes ; and it has left an abiding impression, es- 
pecially upon the Conference in the bosom of which he 
died. His more private deportment as a Christian was 



REV. CHARLES PITMAN. 



235 



iii happy unison with his public position. Generous 
and sympathizing as a friend, and cherishing no resent- 
ment toward any, cheerful without levity, and affable 
without affectation, his whole life was a beautiful illus- 
tration of that blessed religion which it was his vocation 
to promote." 

Whatever the skeptic may think or say, there is cer- 
tainly something wonderfully startling about the work- 
ing of Methodism and its operation on human kind. 
As we trace the history of its great men of the past, its 
orators and most successful preachers, we find them all 
coming from obscurity. Unlettered and uncultured in 
the beginning, as we meet them in life we find them 
displaying the graces and acquirements of the most 
careful training. The subject of this sketch, for in- 
stance, worked in his youth as a day laborer in the 
harvest-fields of Burlington County, and as we see him 
now before us in the pulpit, he presented in all things 
the appearance, culture, and ability of one of God's 
most noble works of human clay. 

In 1850 Mr. Pitman's health began to decline to 
such an extent, as before remarked, that he was obliged 
to give up work, and he retired to the scene of many 
of his early triumphs over the enemy at Trenton, New 
Jersey. That State is greatly indebted to him for its 
progress in Methodism, and he was always extremely 
popular among its people, many of whom, knowing him 
personally, still live and hold 

" His very name a title-page, and next 
His life a commentary on the text." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Controversy to be discouraged. 

Lord Bacon, in one of those admirable essays writ- 
ten during hours that were snatched from the multi- 
farious pursuits in which he was engaged, discoursing 
on " Unity in Religion," said, " Of this I may give 
only this advice, according to my small model. Men 
ought to take heed of rending God's church by two 
kinds of controversies : the one is, when the matter of 
the point controverted is too small and light, not worth 
the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradic- 
tion ; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, Christ's 
coat indeed had no seam, but the church's virtue was 
of divers colors, whereupon he saith, In veste varietas 
sit, scissura not sit* they be two things, unity and con- 
formity; the other is, when the matter of the point 
controverted is great, but it is driven to an over-great 
subtility and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing 
rather ingenious than substantial." And he adds, " A 
man that is of judgment and understanding shall some- 
times hear ignorant men differ, and know well within 
himself that those which so differ mean one thing, and 



* 11 In the garment there may be many colors, but let there 
be no rending of it." 
236 



DISCOURAGE CONTROVERSY. 237 



yet they themselves would never agree ; and if it come 
so to pass in that distance of judgment, which is be- 
tween man and man, shall we not think that God above, 
that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, 
in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing 
and accepteth of both ?" 

Such golden words are worthy to be studied and 
treasured in the hearts of all men, and especially should 
they be considered of by those who love the Lord and 
are striving to keep his commandments. There is 
neither time nor place for controversy in the church, 
albeit the perverseness of human nature is such that 
we sometimes find within it well enough meaning men 
who for the mere love of the thing 

" "Will undertake to prove by force 
Of argument, a man's no horse." 

The same author from whom we have quoted aptly 
remarks, that " men create oppositions which are not, 
and put them into new terms, so fixed as, whereas the 
meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect 
governeth the meaning." It was for such that St. Paul 
intended the admonition, " Avoid profane and vain 
babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called." 
The good Bishop Asbury, when addressing, on a cer- 
tain occasion, a class of young men who were studying 
for the ministry, said, u When you go into the pulpit 
go from your closets. Leave all your vain speculations 
and metaphysical reasoning behind. Take with you 
your hearts full of fresh spring-water from heaven, and 



238 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



preach Christ crucified and the resurrection, and that 
will conquer the world." And, as indicating his dis- 
like of controversy, on another occasion, at a conference 
meeting, he said of his brother, G. W. Bond, " he never 
rises to speak unless he has something to say." Such 
have been the successful preachers of Methodism ; men 
who avoid controversy whenever possible, and who, 
grasping the cross of Christ with one arm, point aloft 
with the other to the glory and grandeur of the rest 
reserved for the great army of the redeemed, and, 
planting themselves on the promises of the eternal 
God of heaven and earth, preach a free salvation to 
all who will accept it and believe. 

A preacher whom we remember as being very pop- 
ular forty years ago, and very successful wherever 
stationed or on circuit, was 

REV. HENRY Gr. KING, 

who entered the ministry, "on trial," in the year 1819. 
Mr. King was a gentleman of fine appearance and pres- 
ence, of rather large build, and possessing much physical 
strength, and, adhering closely to the provincial style 
of dress during his life, his appearance in the pulpit, 
as elsewhere, attracted marked attention. He wore his 
hair long and combed back from his forehead, and his 
singh-breasted coat, with a standing collar, according 
to the cut of the Revolutionary period, rendered him in 
person a fitting representative of the American Meth- 
odist preacher of the olden time. His style of dress, 
however, was not an affectation, for he was wont to say 



REV. HENRY G. KING. 



239 



that it was the costume of his early days, and he did 
not think that a minister of the Gospel should alter 
the cut of his coat to conform it to the constantly- 
changing fashions of the day. Mr. King had been in 
the work as a local preacher for several years before 
entering the Conference as an itinerant, and when he 
did so he threw soul and body into the cause with such 
enthusiastic devotion as rendered him one of the most 
effective ministers of his times. He was a man of 
ardent temperament, sensitive and most kindly disposi- 
tion ; unselfish, and with a heart kind as a woman's. 
Forgetful of or ignoring all temporal interests, he gave 
himself up wholly to the work of his Master, refusing 
to receive more for his services than was absolutely 
necessary to his subsistence. It is related of him that, 
on one occasion, when stationed at the old Eighth Street 
Church, in Philadelphia, he returned to the stewards a 
part of his salary, saying that he had enough for his 
wants, and he knew that the church needed it for other 
purposes; and, as illustrating the sympathetic nature 
of the man, Rev. J. B. Hagany narrates the following 
incident : 

On one of the streets of the city where he was sta- 
tioned a worn-out horse had fallen under his burden 
and was in a dying condition. The animal belonged to 
the poor man who had been driving him, and with the 
cart and harness constituted his only property and 
means of livelihood. Mr. King coming along was at- 
tracted by the curious crowd that had gathered, and 
soon saw the owner of the beast weeping on account of 



240 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



what to him was a great loss. For a moment the 
preacher paused, and then taking from his pocket a 
small book he wrote his name for a sum of money, and 
passing from one to another in the crowd and then into 
the neighboring houses, he in a short time gathered up 
and handed over to the poor fellow money enough to 
buy him another horse. 

FHOM THE FARM TO THE PULPIT. 

Mr. King was of English origin, and was born in 
the county of Lancaster in the year 1792. His parents 
were highly respectable and religious persons, his mother 
a Presbyterian and his father an Episcopalian, and he 
was wont to say that next to the Methodists his attach- 
ments were all with the Presbyterians. His father was 
a farmer, and had served in the Revolutionary war, and 
was wounded at the battle of King's Mountain, or 
Cowpens, and the subject of our sketch worked on the 
farm with his father until he left it to enter the min- 
istry. As was the case with so many of the early 
Methodist preachers, the education of Mr. King was 
limited to such instruction as was afforded by the com- 
mon schools of the last century. He studied the ancient 
languages, however, after enlisting in the Gospel work, 
with Rev. William Mann. He was an unusually close 
and laborious Biblical student, and so familiar was he 
with the language of the Old and New Testaments 
that his ordinary conversation abounded in quotations 
from them. We would not class him as a preacher 
with Durbin, Cookman, or Maffitt, nor would we place 



REV. HENRY G. KING. 



241 



him in the category of u pulpit orators" of distinction. 
He had not studied the arts of elocution, but his rhetoric 
was such as is inspired from on High. His oratory was 
drawn from the poetry of the Bible, and his illustra- 
tions were derived from the familiar traditions of the 
Saviour. His preaching was of the vigorous style, and 
his name would draw a crowded house whenever and 
wherever announced. He dealt liberally in the thun- 
ders of the law, but was unfailing and most happy in 
his presentation of its promises. His style was bold, 
energetic, enthusiastic, and exciting, approximating at 
times, as some persons thought, to " ranting;"* he was 
a a shouting Methodist." But he was nevertheless dig- 
nified and reverent in the extreme, and would brook 



* There were a number of anecdotes current during the minis- 
terial career of Mr. King concerning what was considered by 
some persons as the extravagance of his style and action in the 
pulpit. One of these was to the effect that on a certain occasion 
he " jumped from the pulpit to the floor" of the auditorium, — a 
statement that probably originated from the fact that, missing a 
step when descending the very awkward stairways by which 
access was gained to the old-fashioned pulpits, he was obliged to 
scale several of them at a bound to prevent himself from falling. 
It should be observed, however, that in the early days of Meth- 
odism there were many persons much disposed to ridicule the 
preaching of its doctrines, and it is more than probable that a 
very slight circumstance, or even an accidental movement, would 
often be magnified into either a grave offence or an unpardonable 
indiscretion, and yet it must be admitted that a majority of the 
preachers of the olden time were good healthy shouters, and that 
their utterances were frequently supplemented by vigorous and 
highly demonstrative action. 
L 21 



242 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



nothing like levity concerning things Divine. But few 
men were equal to him in his day in devotion to his 
high calling, and his success in bringing souls to Christ 
was great. As a camp-meeting preacher he was in his 
element. A sermon preached by him on one of these 
occasions, at " Red Lion/' was spoken of as so touching, 
and apparently inspired by the Holy Ghost, that the 
entire mass of people present, including the preachers, 
were affected to tears during the continuance of the 
sermon, which lasted for nearly two hours. It was 
under his preaching, while at different stations, that 
Rev. John A. Roach, now, we believe, in the New 
York Conference ; Rev. Pennell Coomb, of Philadel- 
phia ; and Rev. Joseph Holditch, formerly secretary of 
the American Bible Society, w r ere converted. 

Mr. King's ministry extended over a period of nearly 
fifty years. His first circuit, after entering the Confer- 
ence, was Dauphin, and in 1822 he was at St. George's, 
and again in 1824. In 1832-33 he w T as at St. John's, 
and in 1838-39 at the "Old Brick," in Kensington; 
after which he was stationed at Asbury, at Eighth Street, 
and at Frankford and Manayunk. He was extremely 
popular among the Kensington people, and during his 
pastorate at the "Old Brick" some ship-builders of that 
district named a very fine sea-going vessel after him. 
It was while connected with old St. George's charge 
that he married Harriet, daughter of John McMasters, 
of Philadelphia, and one of the oldest members of 
Ebenezer Church. The McMasters were among the 
very first of the Methodists in this country, the grand- 



REV. HENRY G. KING. 



243 



father of Mrs. King having been a preacher of its doc- 
trines anterior to the Revolutionary war. We knew 
Mr. McMasters very well, as we did the gentle girl 
who gave her heart and hand to the Methodist circuit- 
rider. 

Old Father Gruber had the misfortune when on the 
Burlington (New Jersey) circuit to be afflicted with a 
young man for a colleague who had evidently mistaken 
his calling. He was not only very dressy, but foppish, 
and much given to fishing and shooting, and Gruber 
was in the habit of referring to him as his " dandy 
colleague." There were in the Conference during Mr. 
King's time Rev. Thomas Sovreign and James H. 
Dandy, and Mr. Gruber, playing upon names, was 
wont to say, " We have in the Conference one Sovreign, 
one King, and only one real Dandy." Although an 
entirely different sort of man, there was about King, 
as with Barns, a novelty of style that no effort at word- 
painting could adequately express. His gestures, if we 
may so term his action, were peculiarly his own, and 
hence quite original. He differed essentially in manner, 
style, and conduct from very many other Methodist 
preachers. 

It must in candor be admitted that some gentlemen, 
and not a few, who affect the livery of the pulpit are 
slovenly in their way of life, by which we mean that 
they fail to develop or illustrate the dignity of the high 
calling which they assume to represent. We do not 
mean to say, of course, that a minister of the Gospel, 
be he Methodist or " what not," can be an absolute 



> 



244 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



saint on earth, or that he should be an anchorite, or that 
he must put on the hypocrisy of the monastic order, or 
ignore what we may term the humanities of society, but 
he should nevertheless bear upon his front the badge of 
heaven, and so carry in his hand the great commission 
with which he has been intrusted as will prove to all 
men 

" That he is honest in the sacred cause. " 

Mr. King was exceptional in this regard. No man 
could meet him without being impressed that he stood 
in the presence of a servant of the Most High. Unselfish, 
as we have said, his devotion to the great cause in which 
he was engaged was intense. His life, we think, may 
be characterized a blameless one, and 

" His preaching, but more his practice, wrought 
A living sermon of the truth he taught." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



The Brickmakers of 1832. 

The events of forty-seven years have been buried 
in the past since the stillness of the night was wakened 
by uncommon, if not strange, noises, issuing from the 
brick-kilns with which the commons in the southwest- 
ern part of Philadelphia were dotted in those early 
days. As has been mentioned before in the course of 
this work, it was in the year 1832 that the Asiatic 
cholera, which had swept over the countries of Europe, 
scattering death and desolation in its path, first made 
its appearance in the United States. The masses of 
the people, always more or less readily affected by the 
approach of anything like a plague, were everywhere 
greatly alarmed, and such as could afford to do so re- 
tired in large numbers from the cities to the country, 
where, as was popularly believed, they would be more 
secure from attack. The alarm which was felt in Phila- 
delphia when it was announced that the plague had 
absolutely made its appearance in New York, turned 
to panic when the first case of cholera occurred in the 
old Northern Liberty district, and we well remember 
with what hot haste the children in the neighborhood 
where we resided were packed off to visit country 
cousins for an indefinite period. It was at such a time 

21* 245 



246 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and in such a condition of things that the uncommon 
noises were heard issuing from the empty brick-kilns 
a short distance west of what we, in a previous chapter, 
mentioned as " Goosetown." It was the voice of sup- 
plication and prayer to Almighty God, not only that 
He would ward off the pestilence, but that He would 
save the souls of those who, in this alarming emergency, 
turned the roughly-constructed brick-kilns into places 
of worship. 

It is nearly half a century since those meetings were 
begun, and not one in fifty, perhaps, of the men and 
women who then and there literally clothed themselves 
with ashes, if not in sackcloth, are left to recur to those 
scenes. The men who thus resorted to the commons to 
seek salvation were a rough, hardy, and hard-working 
set of persons. Their day's work in the brick-yards 
was begun at or before daylight in the morning, and 
was generally finished by noon, the newly-moulded 
bricks that came from their hands being left on the 
clayed floor to dry until nearly sunset ; and the plague 
and the prayer-meetings constituted an entirely new 
sensation. There was no Methodist meeting-house or 
church of any kind west of Broad Street in those days, 
if we except Asbury, which was on the other side of 
the river, and a little chapel on Spruce Street wharf, 
Schuylkill, belonging to a Baptist congregation "in 
the city," and used for baptismal occasions. Mission- 
aries or colporteurs, however, from some of the down- 
town churches visited the brick-yard movement, and 
generally at first conducted the services. The prayer- 



THE BRICK-YARD MOVEMENT OF 1832. 247 

meetings in the kilns and sheds connected with the 
brick-yards were kept up during the summer, and 
many, many times the stillness of the night was broken 
by the stentorian voice of Martin Summers or one of 
the Sipp's as it rung out on the night wind in tones of 
agonized petition ; and these noises, supplemented by 
the moaning voices of other stalwart men, and women, 
too, whose hearts had been broken up, or the more 
cheerful voices of such as had found relief in the saving 
grace of God, all issuing from those dirty walls among 
the clay ponds, gave to the scene a fitful, weird, and 
thrilling interest. 

MOVING TO NEW QUARTERS. 

On the northwest corner of what in those days was 
known as Schuylkill Front Street and Chestnut, stood 
an old and deserted building, which was called " the 
china factory." It had been constructed in yet earlier 
days and used for a pumping station to the old water- 
works, another portion of which was located at u Centre 
Square," where the new Public Buildings are now being 
erected ; and when the autumn leaves began to fall, the 
chill of the night air suggested to the brickmakers that 
some better arrangements were necessary for their meet- 
ings, and permission was obtained to occupy the old 
china factory. The accommodations were very meagre 
here, and the location was not at all desirable, and 
shortly thereafter a large room was obtained in a build- 
ing on the north side of Market Street a short distance 
east of Twenty-second Street, then Schuylkill Front, 



248 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



which had been a a country tavern" or stopping-place 
for the drivers of the Conestoga wagons, in which, in 
the olden time, the freighting business between Phila- 
delphia and Pittsburg was done. Here, or perhaps 
before the removal to Market Street, a society was 
formed which was for some years known only as 

THE BRICKMAKERS' CHURCH. 

Preaching was supplied at first from St. George's, 
and afterward alternately from some of the other 
churches, and within a year from the inauguration of 
the brick-yard movement the society increased to such 
an extent as to seemingly warrant the adoption of 
measures for building a church edifice." 

The late Dr. William Swaim, long celebrated as the 
proprietor of " Swaim's Panacea," owned a large plot of 
ground in the neighborhood of Walnut and Twentieth 
Streets, then called Schuylkill Third Street; and, with 
a view doubtless to the improvement of the neighbor- 
hood, which was at that time quite sparsely settled, he 
made a gift of a lot to the brickmakers on which to 
build a church, on the east side of Twentieth Street, 
below Walnut, and the society began at once to perfect 
arrangements for building. This was in 1833. The 
people composing the society were all poor, the tra- 
ditional condition, as we have had occasion to say 
previously, of the old-time Methodists ; but they were 
all willing to work and do anything they could to 
forward the enterprise. Some of the " boss" brick- 
makers made contributions of their material, and one 



WESTERN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 249 



or two lumber dealers in the western part of the city 
gave of that essential article, and others contributed 
according to their ability of money, and within the 
year the walls of the new structure were completed and 
the roof put on. All that was expected for the time 
being was a shelter, for the undertaking was really a 
very serious one for that people, and, the building hav- 
ing been roofed in, renewed efforts were made to finish 
the basement story to be used for class and preaching 
purposes. This was done either within the year men- 
tioned or early in 1834, which is the date at which the 
society first appears on the records of the Conference as 

THE WESTERN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 

with Thomas Neal as pastor in charge. We remember 
" Pappy Neal," as they used to call him, very well. 
He was a hard-working, sincere old gentleman, of most 
kindly disposition, and made himself liked by all with 
whom he was in any way associated. He made no pre- 
tension either to learning or skill as a preacher, but was 
earnest, faithful, and untiring in the work of his Master. 
He remained two years with the Western people, and 
left them with a recorded membership of two hundred 
and fifty. This society never appeared on the Confer- 
ence record as the Brickmakers* Church. Dr. Swaim 
refused to deed the ground to it under that name, con- 
sidering it, doubtless, not sufficiently respectable ; and 
we may here remark that the substitution of another, 
under which the society was incorporated, was a cause 
for such rankling dissatisfaction among the original 

L* 



250 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



members as gave rise to an amount of trouble that can 
scarcely even yet be estimated. 

In the basement of the building was quite a large 
Sunday-school room, which was used for preaching pur- 
poses until the auditorium was finished, which, according 
to our recollection, was in 1836-37, while Bartholomew 
Weed was the pastor in charge. Mr. Weed's pastorate 
closed with two hundred and thirty-four members in 
the society. 

In 1838 the bishops sent to the new and struggling 
society Thomas B. Tibbies. Mr. Tibbies was a married 
man, and, we think, a Delawarean, and he had been in 
charge of the congregation but a few months when a 
frightful scandal arose concerning him. It was talked 
of and discussed, and efforts were made to silence it, 
but, like the ghost of Banquo, " it would not down/' 
and it was finally brought to the attention of the Con- 
ference, but after due examination the charges against 
him were disproved. The society had now been wor- 
shipping in the auditorium some four years. The 
building was a fine and commodious one, but without 
galleries, and the neighborhood was settling up rapidly 
all around. There was still no other Methodist church 
west of Broad Street, and yet the Western did not fill 
up, unless on an exceptional occasion. It was thought 
by many to be too much of a barn, and not sufficiently 
comfortable in appearance to render it attractive to wor- 
shippers, and there was much talk of putting in the 
galleries, but the operation was postponed. It was, 
however, manifest that there was something wrong. 



WESTERN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 251 



The Tibbies scandal had without doubt been very 
damaging, but it only supplemented a condition of 
things that was before unsuccessful, and in 1839-40 
Rev. Pennell Combs was sent out to this frontier station 
with a hope that he could wake it up and infuse into it 
the needed vitality, and, judging from the record, he 
succeeded to some extent at least, for at the close of his 
pastorate, in 1840, the membership was increased to 
four hundred and thirty. These figures, however, fell 
off at the close of the following year, during which 
Rev. John S. Inskip was in charge, to three hundred 
and eighteen. Mr. Combs, who still lives, was a pecu- 
liar man. He was not only as a preacher, but in all 
else, aggressive. Adopting the style of the late Rev. 
John Chambers as a temperance orator, he carried the 
same methods into the pulpit, and, as a consequence, 
his successes were sometimes like the apples of the Dead 
Sea, turned to ashes. 

Rev. Robert M. Greenbank was the pastor in charge 
in 1842-43, and in 1844, Rev. William A. Wiggins 
being in charge, the galleries were put in, notwithstand- 
ing the inability of the best preachers that were sent, 
to fill the lower floor ; and so the Western came to be 
considered a failure. In 1845 Rev. John A. Boyle was 
in charge, and in 1846 " Billy Barns," who could pack 
old and new Salem to the roof, failed to make anything 
out of the Western. In 1847-48 Rev. R. W. Thomas 
was in charge, and in 1849 Joshua Humphreys, who 
closed his pastorate with a membership of one hundred 
and ninety-three, and in 1850-52 the society appears 



252 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



on the Conference records as a mission, the membership 
having run down in 1853 to one hundred and seventy- 
three. 

This church and congregation is a subject for grave 
study. To the lover of Methodism its history is a 
painful one. For nearly half a century it has been the 
nursling of the Conference. The single talent given to 
it at the beginning seems to have been buried, and when 
dug up for examination is found to be absolutely short 
of its original weight. We knew a good deal about 
the Western in the olden time, when we were much 
younger than now, and we think its prime difficulty 
was a want of harmony or concord among all the breth- 
ren. There seemed, however, always something inex- 
plicable about the matter. There can, of course, be 
concord without harmony, and harmony, seemingly at 
least, without concord, but in a case like this, both are, 
to our mind, indispensable. For a long while there 
were two distinctive elements in the church. How that 
may be now we do not know, but so unpropitious have 
matters grown to be, as we have learned recently, 
that a proposition to close the church altogether was 
gravely discussed a few months since. 

The brickmaker element, always more or less dis- 
contented since the adoption of the Western name, 
seceded under Mr. Combs, and, being organized under 
their old title, subsequently obtained a lot of ground 
on Twentieth Street, above Chestnut, and built thereon 
a very comfortable-looking house, which they occupied 
for some years, and then, rusting out, that society was 



WESTERN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 253 

disbanded, and the real brickmakers' church is now 
occupied, in part, as a livery-stable. We should hardly- 
like to criticise this subject as it deserves, lest we might 
be charged with unkindness, if not something of a more 
grave nature; but it is a strong illustration of the futility 
of trying to rise in this world over the influence of a 
bad name. Of course, such a thing is often done where 
an individual has succeeded in accumulating a large 
amount of money, even supposing that it was obtained 
by really dishonest or other disreputable practices, for 
this is the age, of all others, when the possession of 
wealth covers a multitude of sins. We would not say 
that the Western has deservedly a bad name ; in fact, 
the worst thing about its name is the circumstance that 
whilst Methodism has flourished and grown and ex- 
panded everywhere during the many years of its ex- 
istence, it has wellnigh suffered death in the Twentieth 
Street church edifice. 

Because of its misfortune — nothing more — it has for 
many, many years been looked upon as a sort of dead- 
and-alive affair, — a whited sepulchre or charnel-house. 
Such may be an unjust or, at least, uncharitable, criti- 
cism ; but, then, what is to be done if the public, whose 
patronage is sought, persists in such a belief? Much 
money has been spent, as we know, to build up the 
Western Church. After the galleries a new and more 
tasteful front was put up, and then an organ was pur- 
chased, and other improvements were made from time 
to time, and we strongly suspect that, after all, that 
which did most to obstruct the growth of the society 

22 



254 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



as a vital Christian organization was the grand mistake 
of subordinating the religion of Christ to the dictum 
of " the almighty dollar." 

A REMINISCENCE. 

A good many years ago, away back in the forties, 
there was a very prosperous time among the manufac- 
turers of cotton and woollen fabrics. We remember 
two persons who were workmen in one of the mills 
then existing in the western part of our city. They 
were ignorant men,— we do not, however, use the term 
offensively. They knew the trade to which they had 
been reared, and they were possessed of sufficient intel- 
ligence to enable them to understand that the business 
was at the time extremely profitable. They were am- 
bitious, and desirous to better their condition in life, 
and being able to obtain the requisite credit, they each 
purchased what was known as " a set of machinery" for 
carding, spinning, and weaving Kentucky jeans, and, 
having rented room and power in the mill where they 
had been working as employes, they began operations 
on their own account. The profits realized were fabu- 
lous, and in a very short time they had paid for their 
machinery, and had more money subject to draft with 
their factors than they knew what to do with. They 
were fast friends, — Damon and Pythias like, — and 
whatever one did the other would follow. Each moved 
into a fine residence and furnished it gorgeously. They 
purchased for themselves fast horses and carriages, seek- 
ing to rival each other. Their success continued and 



WESTERN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 255 

their gains grew enormously. Each built on the same 
street, facing the other, a factory, and abandoned the 
rented premises, and as the accumulation of money went 
on the one bought another mill, and his friend con- 
structed another of still greater capacity and value, and 
so they prospered and lived in the indulgences of the 
world according to their increased and what was es- 
teemed marvellous wealth, and, with their families, 
they of course became measurably, at least, gay. 

They were both Methodists, and members of the 
Western Church. They had listened to the preaching 
of " Pappy Neal" in the basement when their contribu- 
tions to the penny collection were no greater than that 
of the most humble worshipper ; but when fortune had 
smiled upon them with such a broad laugh as to as- 
tonish everybody, they claimed that the ownership and 
driving of fast horses, or an occasional visit to the race- 
course, either to test the speed of their own stock or 
witness that of other owners, was not inconsistent with 
their professions as Christian men. They were liberal 
givers to the church. As each new improvement was 
suggested their purse-strings were loosened to an extent 
that was unapproachable by any other member of the 
society; and just as naturally as water finds its level, 
so these two gentlemen came to be the autocrats of 
the institution, and the reader will see at a glance how 
the bridge was constructed that was supposed to join 
the elements in the Western Church, and knowing, as 
he must, that it was guarded at each end by sentinels 
who wore a strange uniform, he will not marvel if, 



256 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



when new recruits were called in to give utterance to 
the " shibboleth," they failed to pronounce the word 
correctly, and therefore went on their way in another 
direction. One of these gentlemen has paid the debt 
of nature, the other lives remote from the scenes of 
his early triumphs, and the single. talent entrusted to 
Western Church is without increase. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



" Thek^e is no time like the old time, 
"When you and I were young," 

sang the genial and versatile Holmes. True, we were 
obliged to walk to meeting in those days, even though 
we carried our shoes in our hand, and the cushioned 
seats were less luxuriously comfortable. There was 
nothing then like travelling at the rate of fifty or sixty 
miles an hour, and there were no ferries between New 
York and Havre or Philadelphia and Liverpool as now. 
The spires of the churches were not ambitious to mix 
with the clouds, nor did the organ peal invite us to 
dance rather than to pray. If the starch in our collars 
was less stiff, it was also less cutting. If the beauty of 
the women in church was less the result of painting, it 
was altogether more lovely, and if there were no mil- 
lionnaires in those times, neither was there a race of 
ghouls to rob. the poor and, fattening on the misfortunes 
of others, reduce their fellow-men to practical slavery. 
" There is no friend like the old friend," and " no love 
like the old and everybody and everything is in a 
hurry. As to religion, Ruskin, who some persons may 
set down for an old fogy, says, " most of the good, reli- 
gious communication that I remember has been done on 
foot, and it cannot be easily done faster than at a foot- 
pace," an opinion in which we are inclined to concur. 

22* 257 



258 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Although mention has been heretofore made of 
Ebenezer Church as the first-born of Old Mother St. 
George's, we may not bring these sketches to a close 
without a further brief reference to her as first among 
the parent churches of the metropolis of the Keystone 
State. She, too, became long since a mother in Israel. 
Occupying what was a frontier station at the south end 
of Philadelphia in the olden time, several of her daugh- 
ters are now prospering around her. The Mariners' 
Bethel, noticed in a previous chapter, with its stately 
edifice on Washington Street, may be mentioned as the 
first-born of Ebenezer; and St. Paul's, with its fine 
structure on Catharine Street, above Sixth, as the second. 
Wharton Street, which we shall notice more at length 
directly, was the third daughter, and some eight or ten 
more churches, whose buildings dot the southern and 
southwestern portions of the same city, may be con- 
sidered as the legitimate offspring of Ebenezer, while 
scattered in all directions, north, south, and west, are to 
be found in the various congregations whose origin has 
no connection with that society, many members whose 
first experience in Methodism was had within her walls. 
The old church has well illustrated its name as " the 
stone of help" during the fourscore years and ten of its 
existence, and there must be many refreshing memories 
of Ebenezer among the old-time Methodists who are 
yet permitted to remain with us. A few — and alas how 
meagre the number ! — of those whom we met there forty 
years ago yet live, " and looking like the oak worn, but 
still steady/' count the hours that shall pass ere they 



EBENEZER METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 259 

too are called to join the great company that has gone 
before. Mr. Tasker, now of Wharton Street; Mr. 
Whiteman, of Broad and Arch Streets; Mr. Erastus 
Poulson, of Christ Church ; and Mr. David Bo wen, who 
we believe still clings to the old fortress, are among the 
very few whom we can recall as members when the 
voices of the two Coopers, Bartine, Cookman, Hodg- 
son, Thompson, and others of the old guard were heard 
within her walls ; while " Josie Lonton," Robert Gaw, 
Robert Whitendale, John McMasters, William Flani- 
gen, David Kollock, " Jerry Clark," " Sammy Bayne," 
William Pidgeon, and a host of others whose names we 
might recall, delivered up to the Master, many years 
agone, the several talents that had been entrusted to 
their keeping with their accumulations. Good Old 
Ebenezer, may her memories be forever green ! 

MORE MISSIONARY EFFORT. 

Some time previous to the year 1840, probably in 
? 37 or '38, several young men, members of Ebenezer 
Church, realized the necessity for some kind of mis- 
sionary work in the lower section of the old South- 
wark district, and, seeking to give practical effect to 
their convictions, they obtained possession of a small 
frame building which then stood on the east side of 
Front Street at the lower end of the Navy-Yard wall, 
and there they opened and established a Sunday-school. 
That wonderful agency — the Sunday-school — which has 
done so much for Methodism, and toward the evangeli- 
zation of society generally, was then only in its infancy, 



260 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



the first one organized by the Methodists having been 
commenced by Union Church in 1819. In the course 
of a very short time these young men gathered into 
their fold as many boys and girls as the limited means 
within their control would accommodate. Prominent 
in this movement, the leader of it, indeed, was William 
C. Poulson, who became superintendent of the school, 
and afterward entered the ministry of the Methodist 
Church. We remember that one of his associates in 
the movement, who still lives, we think, was Francis 
Eaton. The school was conducted there for about two 
years, and the harvest was quite equal to the expecta- 
tions of its founders, so much so indeed as that, at the 
end of that time, those engaged in the movement con- 
ceived the necessity for making more extended efforts 
for the benefit of the then thinly-settled neighborhood ; 
and, not heeding the caution of Mr. Asbury concerning 
the building of churches in out-of-the-way places, they 
purchased a lot on Rye Street, a twenty-foot thorough- 
fare running south from Wharton Street, on which they 
proceeded to erect a church and school edifice. It was 
a very unpretending establishment when completed, 
showing that the brethren were by no means ambitious 
in their purposes. The size of the lot was about twenty- 
five by forty feet, and they covered the entire space with 
bricks and mortar ; and having done this much, or per- 
haps before building, they organized themselves into a 
society, calling to their aid such recruits as they could 
obtain, either from the mother- church or from outside. 
They named their little colony 



WHARTON STREET M. E. CHURCH. 261 



BETHESDA MISSION, 

and in the year 1840 it appeared on the Conference 
minutes with a membership of one hundred and forty- 
one, which, before the following meeting in 1841, had 
been increased to one hundred and sixty. Bethesda, 
although a very modest affair, so far as concerned the 
building, was a success, and taught those connected with 
it and others who still remained in Ebenezer the neces- 
sity for further expansion. The brethren, however, 
continued to worship and carry on their Sunday-school 
in Rye Street until the year 1843, gathering in fresh 
sheaves all the while. It was then determined to 
enlarge that portion of Zion and raise the mission to 
the more dignified and useful status of a regular church 
society. Among the gentlemen who were active in this 
new movement, all Ebenezer people, were Mr. Thomas 
T. Tasker, already mentioned, and who at the age 
of fourscore years is untiring of well doing, Andrew 
Godshall, J. Kenny, Joseph Maule, George Mitchell, 
William C. Poulson, and James Singleton, and having 
purchased a large lot on the south side of Wharton Street, 
they proceeded at once to erect what is now known as 

WHARTON STREET CHURCH. 

The new organization of course absorbed the old mis- 
sion, and Wharton Street appears on the minutes of the 
Conference for the first time in 1843, with a membership 
of five hundred and eighty and William Cooper as the 
pastor in charge. The quaint little building on Rye 



262 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Street still stands, and is used for mechanical purposes. 
After the absorption of the mission the old building was 
purchased by the late Thomas D. Grover, a prominent 
Native American politician of the old South war k dis- 
trict, and was by him dedicated as a public hall for the use 
of one of the political ward organizations of that period. 

The Wharton Street congregation was as usual at this 
time composed of persons of very moderate means, but 
there were, nevertheless, many more and much better 
resources for raising money than formerly ; yet the un- 
dertaking was one of no inconsiderable consequence, and 
imposed upon those engaged in it much and arduous 
labor. The men engaged in the movement, however, 
would brook no such word as fail. They were both in- 
dustrious and energetic, and they had a perfect realization 
of the aphorism, that God helps those most who help 
themselves. They made a contract with James Steven- 
son, a builder of considerable enterprise, and they engaged 
to provide him with sufficient money weekly to pay all 
the workmen employed on the building, and this they 
did, as we are assured, with great fidelity, the building 
committee soliciting and collecting subscriptions from 
door to door through the week, with which to make good 
their engagements at its close, and within the year 1842 
the new church edifice was completed and dedicated to 
the service of Almighty God. Wharton Street Church 
when completed was considered a very fine structure, 
and was thought to be sufficiently commodious for all 
time in the future, but it was in a few years found to 
be altogether inadequate to the needs of the greatly 



REV. JOHN A. BOYLE. 



263 



increased population of its neighborhood, and in 1870 
the pressure for more room was such that the society 
determined to rebuild, and it is to-day among the finest 
and most commodious Methodist church edifices in the 
city. There have been many, very many, happy seasons 
at Wharton Street, and the society stands to-day as 
among the bright jewels of Philadelphia Methodism. 
The first preacher assigned to Bethesda mission was 

REV. JOHN A. BOYLE, 

who, as we remember him in health, was, physically, 
among the finest-looking men in the Conference, but 
his health broke down after a few years of service, and 
in 1847 he was obliged to retire from the work of the 
ministry to seek in more active pursuits a restoration of 
failing strength. He was subsequently, and for several 
years, until about 1854, superintendent of Gloucester 
furnace in New Jersey, during a part of which time he 
represented one of the Atlantic County districts in the 
Legislature of that State. He returned to Philadelphia 
in 1854, where he was again attacked with the disease 
which threatened his life. In 1856 he removed to 
Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, and there practised 
law, until the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861, 
when, having measurably recovered his health, he joined 
the One Hundred and Eleventh Regiment of Penn- 
sylvania Volunteers as adjutant. He was soon after- 
ward promoted to the rank of major, and was killed in 
battle at Wauhatchie, Tennessee, in October, 1863. Mr. 
Boyle was an earnest and zealous preacher, and gave 



264 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



much promise of distinction while in the ministry. He 
was extremely practical, and what he undertook to do 
in every relation of life he performed with a cheerful 
and willing heart. As a preacher, he was uniformly 
successful in building up his congregation. He was a 
gallant soldier, first of the Cross and then of his country, 
and his ministerial mantle is worthily worn by a son, 
who is the present pastor of Christ Church, in West 
Philadelphia. To the late 

WILLIAM C. POULSON, 

we think, may justly be awarded the credit of having 
planted and nurtured the seed from which Wharton 
Street Church grew into existence. He was an ardent 
advocate of, and worker for, the Sunday-school system. 
Appreciating the advantages that must accrue from seed 
early sowed and the careful nurturing of the plants 
grown therefrom, he devoted himself most earnestly to 
Sunday-school work, and when lecturing on the subject, 
in life, he declared that the only inscription he desired 
to be placed on his tomb was, " I love the Sabbath- 
school."* Mr. Poulson was born in Accomac County, 
Eastern Shore of Virginia, in the year 1813. He was 
converted when but sixteen years of age, and joined 
the society of Accomac district when it was in charge 
of Rev. Matthew Sorin. In 1830 he removed to Phila- 

* Mr. Poulson was buried in the ground attached to Fairmount 
Church, Annamessick circuit, where he died, and a monument 
erected to his memory by the members of the society bears the 
desired inscription. 



REV. WILLIAM C. POULSON. 



265 



delphia and joined Ebenezer, commencing at once to 
labor in the Sunday-school, of which he was subse- 
quently chosen superintendent. He was early called 
as a class-leader and exhorter, positions which he filled 
with much satisfaction. Having removed into a neigh- 
borhood remote from Wharton Street, he connected 
himself with Union Church, and in 1840 or 1841 he 
was licensed to preach. In 1844 he was admitted to 
the Philadelphia Conference on trial, and was assigned 
to Annamessick circuit, Snow Hill district. In 1845 
he was reappointed to the same circuit, much to the 
gratification of the people among whom he had been 
laboring, and by whom he was much beloved ; but the 
Destroyer had been following in his wake from the time 
of his entering the Conference, and in the second year 
of his itinerancy he yielded up his life to the God who 
gave it, full of faith and trust in the promises of his 
Saviour. Mr. Poulson gave much promise of useful- 
ness in the ministry, and his early death was deeply 
deplored by all who knew him. He was a man of 
much piety and great devotion to the cause of religion. 
Of an amiable disposition and much kindness of heart, 
he made friends rapidly, and was hence, for a young 
man, popular. As a preacher, he was logical, method- 
ical, and persuasive. He made no pretensions to style 
or oratory, but would probably, if his life had been 
spared, have risen to an important position among his 
colleagues in the ministry ; but, then, 

" Is it not better to die willingly 
Than linger till the glass be all outrun ?" 
M 23 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



Kev. John Wesley. 

With this chapter we bring these somewhat desul- 
tory sketches to a close. We might very well continue 
them at much greater length, noticing the progress of 
more modern Methodism locally and otherwise, but 
such was not the original design of the author. Many 
volumes would be required to notice even very briefly 
the movement and growth of this mighty organization 
in detail. Occupying at the beginning a space which, 
figuratively speaking, could be covered by a man's 
hand, its temples now dot the civilized world, while its 
educational systems and its varied beneficences have 
been extended to all peoples. Go where we may and 
we shall hear the voice of the Methodist preacher, and 
from the frigid to the torrid zone its hymns of praise 
are sung. Its churches are counted by many thousands, 
and its membership is numbered in millions. States, 
territories, towns, and villages all have their local history 
of Methodism and its accomplishments, either written 
or unwritten, but we may not venture so much as a 
glance at them. There is much that might be written 
with profit to the general reader concerning the agencies * 
and present operations of Methodism. Its missionary 
efforts, its Sunday-school enterprises, its educational 
266 



REV. JOHN WESLEY. 



267 



features and movements, and the varied charities that 
have grown up and twined around the system, especi- 
ally during the last twenty or thirty years of its exist- 
ence, are all subjects of great interest to Methodists, 
and ought to be so considered by all denominations of 
Christians. There are, too, many old-time preachers 
who were known in life to not a few of us who still 
survive, but of whom the existing generation knows 
practically nothing. Grateful sketches might be written 
of some of those. A few of them are mentioned in 
the books, while many others not less worthy, if less 
fortunate in this regard, live in memoriam only on the 
death record of the Annual Conference to which they 
belonged ; but to make sketches of them might fail of 
interest to the general reader. We would subject our- 
selves, however, to deserved criticism if we should 
neglect, before bidding adieu to the subject, some more 
elaborate notice than we have heretofore given of the 
founder and organizer of Episcopal Methodism. 

There is, of course, extant and in print ample bio- 
graphical and general history of that distinguished 
divine. No history of Methodism could be written 
without Mr. Wesley as the central figure, and yet to 
very many, a large majority doubtless, of the readers 
for whose benefit or entertainment these sketches have 
been prepared, the history of his life and work is very 
much like a sealed book. The world of Methodism, 
and, indeed, of all Protestantism, knows Wesley just as 
civilization knows Washington and Napoleon, — names 
that are each like a great foot-print on the earth. There 



268 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



are many names and many things unseen that we know 
of just as we do that God is great and good. The 
world knows the name of Wesley as synonymous with 
Methodism, precisely as it realizes that of Luther as 
synonymous with the Reformation ; but we shall never- 
theless not err, we think, in saying that beyond this 
general idea, the mass of the people know but little 
in detail concerning the man to whom society owes so 
much for the promotion of revealed religion. 

John Wesley was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, 
England, June 14, 1703. The original name was 
Westley, and his father Samuel was an English clergy- 
man, who was born in Preston, somewhere along 
between 1662 and 1668, according to different authori- 
ties. He died, however, April 30, 1735. The elder 
Wesley was designed by his father, whose name also, by 
the way, was John, for a Dissenting minister, but hav- 
ing joined the Church of England, he entered Exeter 
College, Oxford, as a "poor scholar," and supported 
himself by teaching until he obtained orders. He 
developed much ability as a writer, both in prose and 
poetry, during his life. Preached against King James's 
"declaration for liberty of conscience," — 1688, — and 
wrote in defence of the "revolution" that occurred 
subsequently. 

For his services in the cause of that revolution he 
was presented with the living of Epworth, and con- 
tinued to be the rector of that parish for more than 
forty years, the living of Wroote having been also, 
meanwhile, bestowed upon him. The Wesleys were 



REV. JOHN WESLEY. 



269 



blessed with a most excellent and devoted Christian 
mother, who was the instructress of her children in 
early life.* To John, who was the second of three 
sons, she paid particular attention, designing to devote 
him to the service of God as a thank-offering on 
account of the preservation of his life under extraordi- 
nary circumstances. 

When about six years of age the parsonage from 
some cause took fire and was burned, and the boy John 
having been providentially rescued, the mother con- 
sidered the circumstance, as she says in her journal of 
private meditations, as " laying her under special obli- 
gation to be more particularly carefull of the soul of a 
child whom God had so mercifully provided for." 
Under such training and culture the boy whose man- 
hood shone with such brightness was more than usually 
serious, and it is stated by one of his biographers that 
when but eight years of age he was permitted by his 
father to partake of the sacrament. At the age of 
eleven years he was placed in the Charter-House, where 
he attracted marked attention on account of his dili- 
gence and rapid progress in learning, becoming a great 
favorite of Dr. Walker, his master. 

At about the age of seventeen the founder of Meth- 
odism entered Christ Church College, Oxford, and 
at twenty-two years of age he was ordained deacon. 

* u I can find no evidence that the boys were ever put to any 
school in the country : their mother having a very bad opinion 
of the common methods of instructing and governing children." 
— Dr. "Whitehead. 

23* 



270 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



At this period of Mr. Wesley's life, says a biographer, 
" his natural temper was gay and sprightly, with a turn 
for wit and humor." And Mr. Babcock referred to 
him as " the very sensible and acute collegian ; a young 
fellow of the finest classical taste, and of the most liberal 
and manly sentiments." 

In 1726 he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln College, 
and appointed a Greek lecturer and moderator, and a 
year later was graduated a Master of Arts. Shortly 
after his ordination as deacon he took the position of 
curate for his father, and whilst in that capacity was 
ordained to the priesthood. He came from a long line 
of preachers, and it is something remarkable that the 
same spirit of reform or nonconformity that was finally 
developed in him was an active and, indeed, aggressive 
principle with and in his grandfather, who, in 1661, 
was arrested and committed to jail on account of what 
were deemed his heterodox teachings, and when, after 
being released, he removed with his family to another 
town, the corporation prohibited his settling there. 

MR. WESLEY A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 

While all the biographers of Mr. Wesley unite in 
such opinion of him as quoted, he was not, we judge, in 
early life estimated or considered as an extraordinary 
person. His mother was a daughter of Dr. Annesley, 
an eminent nonconformist minister, and it would 
thus seem that from both sides he had inherited a spirit 
of resistance or nonconformity to the church establish- 
ment of the realm, however he might and did cling 



REK JOHN WESLEY, 



271 



to its traditions and forms. He was, however, very early 
in life deeply impressed with the decadence of religious 
feeling and conduct throughout the world. 

We mentioned in an early chapter of this work the 
connection of Mr. Wesley with what was termed by 
way of derision "the Holy Club," and we traced briefly 
the steps by which he progressed to the formation of 
what came to be known as a Methodist society, a term, 
also, which, as previously seen, was given to " the new 
generation" of Christians by way of reproach.* Like 
most men who have made their mark on the tablets of 
the world's history, Mr. Wesley was a creature of cir- 
cumstances. He had no thought of revolution in the 
beginning of his career. The Established Church, 



* " From the name of an ancient sect of physicians, say some 
of Mr. "Wesley's biographers ; but probably the wits of Oxford 
who imposed the name knew nothing of that sect of the middle 
ages. The nonconformists were often called in derision Meth- 
odists ; and the name was probably transmitted from them ; or 
it might be given merely from the rigid adherence to method of 
study by Charles Wesley. It is, however, somewhat worthy of 
notice, that before the time of nonconformity properly so called 
we find Methodists mentioned as one of the minor sects in con- 
junction with the Anabaptists ; for as early as 1639, in a sermon 
preached at Lambeth, they are rated in good set style for their 
aversion to rhetorical sermons. ... At a later period, 1693, 
some of the nonconformists who had renounced the imputation 
of Christ's righteousness in justification, except in the merit of 
it, and whose views were somewhat similar to those of the Wes- 
leyan Methodists, on the imputation of faith for righteousness, 
were called by their brethren the New Methodists." (Emory's 
Life of "Wesley.) 



272 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



with its traditions, its forms and ceremonies, were all 
dear to him, and we have seen how tenaciously he clung 
to them for a time, and that even after breaking away 
from the Church, and having entered upon the work 
of forming a new organization, he would have intro- 
duced as many of them as possible into the newly- 
formed structure. It was not until after the establish- 
ment of Methodism in the New World that he was 
able to get his mind away from the apostolic succession 
as applicable to the episcopal office, a prejudice, for 
such it must be regarded, which was for a time ex- 
tremely embarrassing to the new movement. Nor is it 
at all certain that when uttering the memorable senti- 
ment, u the world is my parish," he yet expected the 
establishment of a church different from that in which 
he had been reared. 

But how adown the steps of the centuries these re- 
form movements have progressed, each agent, preacher, 
or leader as he may be termed, doing simply what Mr. 
Wesley proposed to himself when he gave utterance to 
the declaration we have quoted ! First, Wycliffe ; then 
the glorious and unterrified Huss, burned at the stake ; 
then the stalwart Luther ; then the intrepid Knox ; 
then the bland, amiable, loving, yet energetic and un- 
tiring Wesley. No one supposes that Wycliffe, when, 
in the year 1360, he distinguished himself in a contro- 
versy with the mendicant friars, contemplated revolu- 
tion, or that he then more than sought to correct certain 
errors and abuses that were practised by these orders. 
When, half a century later, Huss embraced the views 



REV. JOHN WESLEY. 



273 



of Wycliffe and began to write and preach against the 
misconduct of the clergy, he sought, as he supposed, 
but a simple reform of abuses; but he was impelled 
forward step by step, just as was Mr. Wesley, only that 
the sturdy Bohemian met with such fierce and dastardly 
opposition as caused the sacrifice of his life at the stake. 
So Luther, a century later, — another step down the de- 
clivity of time, — when declaring, " It is God^s way to 
make of beggars men of power, just as He made the 
world of nothing/' had no idea that the cloister of 
Erfurt should realize the proud distinction of being the 
birthplace of Lutheran Protestantism, and of the evan- 
gelical doctrine of justification by faith without the 
works of the law. It was with Wesley as with Luther, 
only that the former lived under a better civilization. 
Deeply impressed — shocked, indeed — and pained by the 
irregularities and corruptions of the Romish Church, 
of which he was a part, the great German preacher 
sought at first only to correct its errors and reform its 
practices, but he was driven forward by the constantly- 
occurring circumstances, into such new antagonisms as 
caused the world wellnigh to shake with the conflict 
between the German mendicant priest who had sung 
his way through the streets as a beggar and the then 
all-powerful Church of Rome. 

THE EXPERIENCE OF MR. WESLEY 

was very different from that of the reformers who had 
preceded him. The subtle but powerful logic of Wyc- 
liffe ; the sturdy blows of John Huss ; the tremendous 



274 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



and all-powerful rhetoric of Martin Luther, and the 
convincing arguments of John Knox, had long time 
before pierced the fortress of superstitious error and 
corruption, and brushed away, and indeed buried, many 
of the obstacles to reform. He was not, in the same 
sense as these, an aggressive reformer. The circum- 
stances were widely different, and he hence had no oc- 
casion to make violent attacks on the Papacy or the 
Church of England, but he appealed to the sense of the 
people. The artillery with which he sought to break 
down the power of the arch-fiend and enemy of man- 
kind was prayer. The troops which he brought into 
the field as an invading army were clothed in the pano- 
ply of the Holy Ghost, and with these, supplemented 
by the promises of the Gospel, he captured great masses 
of the people, and accomplished a work that had been 
but half done by the great reformers who had gone 
before him in the preceding centuries. 

They were called to resist a colossal and despotic 
power. Against them was fulminated not only the 
terrors of the law but the whole power of the Church ; 
while our hero, unfurling the banner of the Cross and 
a free salvation, was met with open arms, and was prac- 
tically unmolested by the vengeance of man's hate or 
the dictum of temporal or so-called spiritual power. 
True, the finger of scorn and derision was for a time 
pointed at him and his followers, and on several occa- 
sions he was insulted and, as it were, spat upon, a mob 
of men threatening to do him personal injury; but 
these threats and outrages were quieted by the power of 



REV. JOHN WESLEY. 



275 



his preaching and the blameless nature of his life and 
conduct. 

As the circumstances under which Mr. Wesley was 
called to act, and his methods differed from those of the 
early reformers, so was he altogether different in dispo- 
sition and temperament. The work in which he was 
engaged was of a more spiritual nature than were the 
movements of his several predecessors. Personally he 
was more cultured, more refined, than they. He had 
been reared under more humanizing circumstances. He 
was gentle, kind, and loving, but not by any means 
wanting in firmness and decision of character or of 
purpose. 

In 1735 Mr. Wesley conceived the idea and formed 
the purpose to visit America as a missionary to the 
Indians. This design met with much opposition from 
friends. For a time they remonstrated kindly, and 
sought to persuade him from his purpose, but failing 
in that, some of them became more demonstrative, while 
others scoffed at and ridiculed him. One of his friends 
said to him, " What is this, sir ? Are you turned Quix- 
otic, too? Will nothing serve you but to encounter 
wind-mills ?" To which he replied, " Sir, if the Bible 
be not true, I am as very a fool and madman as you can 
conceive; but if it be of God, I am sober-minded." 
His immediate companions on the voyage were his 
brother Samuel, Mr. Benjamin Ingham, of Queen's 
College, and Mr. Charles Delamotte, the son of a Lon- 
don merchant, and they set sail for the New World on 
the 14th of October, 1735, and on the 6th of February, 



276 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



1736, after a somewhat perilous passage, they arrived at 
Savannah, Georgia ; and here we shall see again, how 
much the creature of circumstances Mr. Wesley was. 
He sought the wilderness of a new, strange, and measu- 
rably unbroken country to preach to the Indians, and 
in that at least it may be supposed, considering all the 
conditions, that he was to an extent, if not Quixotic, 
greatly astray, but God did not permit him to test that 
experiment. He was evidently being schooled for the 
great events of his life, albeit unknowingly to himself, 
and although his mission was a failure in so far as man's 
judgment was concerned, it is plain to see and easy to 
believe that it constituted a part of the Divine plan of 
raising up the man for the special work which was 
necessary to be performed. The Jews considered the 
mission of Christ a failure, and even now refuse to 
recognize his Divine origin or the purpose of his em- 
bassy on earth, and it is by no means a hard thing to 
trace or discover the analogy of the two cases. It was 
necessary that Mr. Wesley should have such an expe- 
rience to teach him what he was. It was had at a time 
of life when character would be best formed and de- 
veloped, and it was such as to test, and at the same time 
strengthen his stability of purpose ; to fix more deeply 
his faith, and through being brought into contact 
and association with the Moravians, he was taught the 
great lesson of life, namely, that he was still an un- 
converted man. The Georgia experience, including the 
voyage either way, exhibited the Almighty to him in 
such light as he had not before been revealed, and the 



REV. JOHN WESLEY. 



277 



persecutions, in the midst of which he left the New 
World, gave to him renewed assurance that " a bruised 
reed" shall not be broken, nor shall the " smoking flax" 
be consumed.* 



* Mr. Wesley had been in America some time when he made 
the acquaintance of a Miss Hopkey, an accomplished young lady, 
and niece to the wife of the chief magistrate of Savannah, Mr. 
Causton, and who has been erroneously designated by some of 
Mr. "Wesley's biographers as a daughter of the Caustons. The 
intimacy quite naturally approximated toward an engagement 
for marriage, but yet had not reached that point, when it was 
suggested by one of the friends who had accompanied him 
to Georgia, that the lady might not be just the kind of person 
suited for him, and after much reflection on the subject he deter- 
mined to ask and be guided in the premises by the advice of the 
elders of the Moravian Church, of which there was an organiza- 
tion there. These brethren advised against any further prosecu- 
tion of the intimacy, and Mr. Wesley accordingly retired with 
as much grace as would be expected from a gentleman of his 
culture. The lady subsequently, and indeed shortly thereafter, 
married a Mr. Williamson, thus showing probably that the 
great preacher had made a narrow escape. Finding it impracti- 
cable to preach to the Indians, Mr. Wesley and his friends had 
gathered into a society such persons as he found disposed to meet 
for worship, and assumed the rectorship, still clinging to the 
Established Church. He adhered to the rubric of the Church, 
and insisted on a rigid observance of its provisions, especially in 
so far as the sacraments were concerned, and when a person had 
neglected the ordinance, he required that the name should be given 
him on the previous day, if intending again to commune. The 
breaking away from the intimacy with Miss Hopkey had caused 
more or less of adverse feeling among the friends of the Caustons, 
and Mrs. Williamson after her marriage developed a disposition 
to do as she might please in regard to conforming to the rubric ; 
and Mr. Wesley insisting on his rule, there grew up such a con- 

24 



278 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



Doubtless Mr. Wesley was glad to get home again 
from his visit to America, and to meet again his old 



dition of affairs as led to a crusade against the preacher. He had 
excluded Mrs. Williamson from the Lord's table because she 
would not conform to the rubric, and the Caustons charged that 
it was because she had refused to marry him. Matters grew 
worse daily, and when the time for the sitting of the court drew 
near, the magistrate sought to have the preacher indicted by the 
grand jury. He charged them to 11 beware of spiritual tyranny, 
and to oppose the new illegal authority which was usurped over 
their consciences." Mrs. Williamson made an affidavit, and the 
magistrate prepared and gave to the grand jury a document 
entitled "a list of grievances presented by the grand jury for 
Savannah this day of 1737," and after much contro- 

versy and hearing of testimony, a majority of the jury finally 
returned the list of grievances in a modified form to the court, 
as what in legal parlance is termed a presentment. These 
troubles continued for some time. Mr. Wesley addressed the 
court, denying its jurisdiction as to ecclesiastical affairs, and de- 
manding that he should be at once tried as to the charges which 
were of a secular nature, but the court hesitated and put the 
matter off from time to time ; and a portion of the grand jury had 
drawn up for them, and signed, a protest against the proceeding 
of the majority, to be sent to England, Causton meanwhile pur- 
suing Mr. Wesley with great bitterness, and urging the court to 
try him, a request in which Mr. Wesley joined ; but the court 
still hesitated, and halted, evidently seeing the injustice of the 
persecution, and yet not quite able to resist, as it should have done, 
the manufactured public opinion of the colony ; and finally Mr. 
Wesley consulted his friends as to the proper course for him to 
pursue. His own judgment was that Providence now called him 
to leave the place and return to England, and his friends con- 
curred in that opinion. He forthwith gave notice to Causton that 
he intended leaving, — just what the magistrate desired, although 
he made a show of opposition, — and on the 22d of January, 1738, 



REV. JOHN WESLEY. 



279 



friends in a field whose culture he could better under- 
stand and where the harvest would be commensurate 
to the labor bestowed upon it. But we may not trace 
his great career further in a single chapter at the close 
of our work. In appearance, judging from such por- 
traits as we have seen of Mr. Wesley, he was in youth 
rather effeminate, considering his great strength of 
character, and although small of stature, he was of dig- 
nified and commanding presence. An eminent London 
artiste thus described him : 

" The figure of Mr. Wesley was remarkable. His 
stature was low, his habit of body in every period of 
life the reverse of corpulent, and expressive of strict 
temperance and continual exercise. Notwithstanding 
his small size, his step was firm and his appearance till 
within a few years of his death vigorous and muscular. 
His face, for an old man, was one of the finest we have 
seen. A clear, smooth forehead, an aquiline nose, an 
eye the brightest and most piercing that can be con- 
sidered, and a freshness of complexion scarcely ever 
to be found at his years, and expressive of the most 
perfect health, conspired to render him a venerable and 
interesting figure. ... In dress he was the pattern of 



lie again set sail for the shores of Old England, and in his jour- 
nal under date February 17, he wrote, u It is now two years and 
almost four months since I left my native country, in order to 
teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity ; hut what 
have I learned myself in the mean time ? Why, — what I the least 
of all expected, — that I, who went to America to convert others, 
was never myself converted to God." 



280 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



neatness and simplicity. A narrow plaited stock, a coat 
with a small upright collar, no buckles at his knees, no 
silk or velvet on any part of his apparel, and a head as 
white as snow, gave an idea of something primitive and 
apostolic, while an air of neatness and cleanliness was 
diffused over his whole person/' While Mr. Wesley 
was a man of much amiability and great kindness of 
heart, he was yet a person of much firmness and decision : 
characteristics the blending of which may be seen from 
numerous incidents in his career.* Considering 



* Mr. Joseph Bradford was for some years the travelling com- 
panion of Mr. Wesley, and the relations of the two were of the 
most intimate and cordial nature, Bradford heing intensely de- 
voted to his chief. On a certain occasion, as related by Everett, 
Mr. Wesley said to his assistant, "Joseph, take those letters to 
the post." 

11 1 will take them after preaching, sir," said Bradford. 

" Take them now, Joseph," said Mr. Wesley ; to which Brad- 
ford replied, " I wish to hear you preach, sir, and there will be 
sufficient time for the post after service." 

" I insist upon you going now," said Mr. Wesley ; when the 
other responded, " I will not go at present." 

" You won't?" 

"No, sir." 

" Then," said Mr. Wesley, " we must part." 
"Very good, sir," said Bradford. 

The next morning after both had slept, Mr. Wesley said to 
his companion, "Joseph, have you considered what I said, that 
we must part ?" to which the other replied, " Yes, sir." 

" And must we part ?" said Wesley. 

"Please yourself, sir," said the companion and friend. 

" Will you ask my pardon, Joseph ?" 

" No, sir," said Bradford. 



REV. JOHN WESLEY. 



281 



ME. WESLEY AS A PREACHER, 

we are not told that he ranked in speaking accomplish- 
ments with Cicero or others of the Grecian orators 
whose names have been handed down in history, and 
yet it may be that his utterances were even more suc- 
cessful before the mass of men than were the most 
finished specimens of written speech with which the 
world has been furnished as models. It must be con- 
ceded, however, that he was an eloquent preacher under 
any and all circumstances, for no man could have 
attained to the success he did as a preacher without 
possessing and discoursing to his audience the very 
essence of eloquence. His theme was the cross of 
Christ and the atonement, repentance and the remission 
of sins, a free salvation to a lost and ruined world. 
The extent, too, of his preaching was immense ; he was 
constantly travelling, and while engaged in a multipli- 
city of administrative work he, nevertheless, preached 
daily, when opportunity offered, and the labor he per- 
formed during a series of years as preacher, adminis- 
trator, and organizer, if undertaken by our friends in 
the ministry of the present day, would probably suffice 



" You won't?" 
" No, sir." 

" Then," said the great man, u I will ask yours," and Bradford 
was melted to tears. 

That faithful assistant and friend remained near Mr. Wesley 
until his death, and had the melancholy pleasure of listening 
to his last utterance on earth, 11 Farewell." 

24* 



282 



METHODISM, OLD AND NEW. 



to bury about fifty per cent, of the Conference annually. 
As an organizer and administrator or director of men 
Mr. Wesley was, we are impelled to say, without an 
equal. His conception of the itinerancy, that most 
wonderful lever for the establishment and promotion of 
Methodism, although possibly borrowed from WycliflFe, 
who sent his followers out through the country, to a 
limited extent, at least, in the fourteenth century, indi- 
cated not only an extraordinary breadth of vision, but 
most consummate practicability for design and execu- 
tion. Mr. Wesley was one of the purest of men. In 
the language of Macaulay, " He was a man whose elo- 
quence and logical acuteness might have rendered him 
eminent in literature, whose genius was not inferior to 
that of Richelieu/' And another eminent author said 
of him-: "A greater poet may rise than Homer or 
Milton; a greater theologian than Calvin; a greater 
philosopher than Bacon ; a greater dramatist than any 
of ancient or modern fame, but a more distinguished 
revivalist of the churches than John Wesley, never." 
This was the mission of the great apostle of Method- 
ism, — not to reform the world, nor the churches, but to 
revive and give to the decaying body of Christ's religion 
new life, new vitality, and new vigor. And, as is well 
said of him by another, " To-day men of all denomi- 
nations honor his memory as one of the moral heroes 
and leaders of our race." Mr. Wesley died in March, 
1791, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. 



APPENDIX. 



DOCTMNE. 

ARTICLES OF RELIGION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 

CHURCH. 

I. — Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. 

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without 
body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the 
maker and preserver of all things, visible and invisible. And in 
unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, 
power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 

II. — Of the Word j or Son of God, who was made very man. 

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal 
God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the 
womb of the blessed virgin ; so that two whole and perfect na- 
tures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were joined 
together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, 
very God and very man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead 
and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, 
not only for original guilt, but also for the actual sins of men. 

III.— Of the Resurrection of Christ. 

Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his 
body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's 
nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth 
until he return to judge all men at the last day. 

2S3 



284 



APPENDIX. 



TV.— Of the Holy Ghost. 

The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is 
of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the 
Son, very and eternal God. 

V. — The Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation. 

The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation ; 
so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, 
is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an 
article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. 
In the name of the Holy Scripture, we do understand those 
canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose au- 
thority was never any doubt in the Church. 

The names of the Canonical Books. 

Genesis ; Exodus ; Leviticus ; Numbers ; Deuteronomy ; Joshua ; 
Judges ; Euth ; The First Book of Samuel ; The Second Book 
of Samuel; The First Book of Kings; The Second Book of 
Kings ; The First Book of Chronicles ; The Second Book of 
Chronicles ; The Book of Ezra ; The Book of Nehemiah ; The 
Book of Esther ; The Book of Job ; The Psalms ; The Proverbs ; 
Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher ; Cantica, or Song of Solomon ; 
Four Prophets the greater ; Twelve Prophets the less. All the 
books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we 
do receive and account canonical. 

XI.— Of the Old Testament. 

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New ; for both in 
the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind 
by Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man, 
being both God and man. Wherefore they are not to be heard 
who feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory prom- 
ises. Although the law given from God by Moses, as touching 
ceremonies and rites, doth not bind Christians, nor ought the 
civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any common- 



DOCTRINE. 



285 



wealth ; yet, notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free 
from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. 

VII. — Of Original or Birth Sin. 
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the 
Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature 
of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of 
Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, 
and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually. 

VIII.— Of Free Will. 

The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he 
cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength 
and works, to faith, and calling upon God ; wherefore we have no 
power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without 
the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a 
good will, and working with us, when we have that good will. 

IX. — Of the Justification of Man. 

"We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own 
works or deservings. "Wherefore, that we are justified by faith 
only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort. 

X.—Of Good Works. 

Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow 
after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the 
severity of God's judgments ; yet are they pleasing and accept- 
able to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, 
insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known 
as a tree is discerned by its fruit. 

XI. — Of Works of Supererogation. 

Voluntary works, besides, over and above God's command- 
ments, which are called works of supererogation, cannot be 
taught without arrogancy and impiety. For by them men do 



286 



APPENDIX. 



declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they 
are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of 
bounden duty is required : whereas Christ saith plainly, When 
ye have done all that is commanded you, say, "We are unprofit- 
able servants. 

XII. — Of Sin after Justification. 

Not every sin willingly committed after justification is the sin 
against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore, the 
grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin 
after justification : after we have received the Holy Ghost, we 
may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and, by the grace 
of God, rise again and amend our lives. And therefore they are 
to be condemned who say they can no more sin as long as they 
live here ; or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent. 

XIII.— Of the Church. 

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, 
in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments 
duly administered, according to Christ's ordinance, in all those 
things that of necessity are requisite to the same. 

XIY. — Of Purgatory. 

The Komish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worship- 
ping and adoration as well of images as of relics, and also invo- 
cation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded 
upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the word of God. 

XV. — Of Speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as the 
People understand. 

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God, and the 
custom of the primitive Church, to have public prayer in the 
Church, or to minister the sacraments, in a tongue not understood 
by the people. 

XVI. — Of the Sacraments. 

Sacraments, ordained of Christ, are not only badges or tokens 
of Christian men's profession ; but rather they are certain signs of 



DOCTRINE, 



287 



grace, and God's good will toward us, by the which he doth work 
invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen 
and confirm our faith in him. 

There are two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the 
Gospel ; that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. 

Those five commonly called sacraments, that is to say, confir- 
mation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction, are 
not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel, being such as 
have partly grown out of the corrupt following of the apostles ; 
and partly are states of life allowed' in the Scriptures, but yet 
have not the like nature of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, 
because they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of 
God. 

The sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, 
or to be carried about ; but that we should duly use them. And 
in such only as worthily receive the same, they have a wholesome 
effect or operation ; but they that receive them unworthily, pur- 
chase to themselves condemnation, as St. Paul saith. I Cor. xi. 
29. 

XVII.— Of Baptism. 

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of differ- 
ence, whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are 
not baptized ; but it is also a sign of regeneration, or the new 
birth. The baptism of young children is to be retained in the 
Church. 

XVIII.— Of the Lord's Supper. 

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that 
Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but 
rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death ; inso- 
much that, to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive 
the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body 
of Christ ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the 
blood of Christ. 

Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread 
and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved by Holy 
Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, over- 



288 



APPENDIX. 



throweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to 
many superstitions. 

The hody of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, 
only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the means 
whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, 
is faith. 

The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordi- 
nance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. 

XIX.— Of both Kinds. 

The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people ; for 
both the parts of the Lord's supper, by Christ's ordinance and 
commandment, ought to be administered to all Christians alike. 

XX. — Of the one Oblation of Christ, finished upon the Cross. 

The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect redemption, 
propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, 
both original and actual ; and there is none other satisfaction for 
sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the 
which it is commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for 
the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a 
blasphemous fable, and dangerous deceit. 

XXL — Of the Marriage of Ministers. 

The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's law either 
to vow the estate of single life or to abstain from marriage : 
therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry 
at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve 
best to godliness. 

XXII. — Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Churches. 

It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in all places 
be the same, or exactly alike ; for they have been always differ- 
ent, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, 
times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against 
God's word. Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly 
and purposely doth openly break the rites and ceremonies of the 



DOCTRINE. 



289 



Church to which he belongs, which are not repugnant to the 
word of God, and are ordained and approved by common author- 
ity, ought to be rebuked openly, that others may fear to do the 
like, as one that offendeth against the common order of the Church, 
and woundeth the consciences of weak brethren. 

Every particular Church may ordain, change, or abolish rites 
and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to edification. 

XXIII. — Of the Rulers of the United States of America. 

The President, the Congress, the General Assemblies, the 
Governors, and the Councils of State, as the delegates of the 
people, are the rulers of the United States of America, according 
to the division of power made to them by the Constitution of 
the United States, and by the Constitutions of their respective 
States. And the said States are a sovereign and independent 
nation, and ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction.* 

XXI Y. — Of Christian Men's Goods. 

The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touch- 
ing the right, title, and possession of the same, as some do falsely 
boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he 
possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his 
ability. 

XXV.— 0/ a Christian Man's Oath. 

As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Chris- 
tian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his apostle ; so we 
judge that the Christian religion doth not prohibit, but that a 
man may swear when the magistrate requireth, in a cause of 
faith and charity, so it be done according to the prophet's 
teaching, in justice, judgment, and truth. 



* " As far as it respects civil affairs, we believe it the duty of Chris- 
tians, and especially all Christian ministers, to be subject to the supreme 
authority of the country where they may reside, and to use all laudable 
means to enjoin obedience to the powers that be; and therefore it is 
expected that all our preachers and people, who may be under the British 
or any other government, will behave themselves as peaceable and orderly 

subjects." — Simpson. 

n 25 



290 



APPENDIX. 



STATISTICS OF METHODISM. 

GENERAL SUMMARIES. 

In the subjoined table the statistical summaries of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church are those for the year ending July 1, 
1878. Those of the Methodist Episcopal Church South are for 
the year 1877, the latest reported. Those of the British Wesleyan 
and other branches are the latest reliable summaries which had 
been received up to September 1, 1878. In several cases the 
numerical returns of the preachers are for 1877, while those of 
the lay membership are for 1878. In two or three instances the 
numbers of local preachers have been estimated by the aid of 
those best informed with regard to the respective Methodisms. 
The returns from France and Ireland are in part. 

Itinerant Local Lay 

I. Episcopal Methodists in United States: Ministers. Preachers. Members. 

Methodist Episcopal 11,308 12,560 1,688,783 

Methodist Episcopal South (previous year) 3,439 5,684 765,337 

Colored Methodist Episcopal 638 683 112,300 

African Methodist Episcopal 1,418 3,168 214,806 

African Methodist Episcopal Zion 1,500 2,500 190,900 

Evangelical Association 828 540 105,013 

United Brethren 1,952 143,841 

Union American Methodist Episcopal (Colored) 101 22 2,550 

Total Episcopal Methodists in United States 21,184 25,157 3,223,530 

II. Non-Episcopal Methodists in United States: 

Methodist Protestant 1,314 925 113,405 

American Wesleyan (1876) 250 200 25,000 

Free Methodists 224 196 19,232 

Primitive Methodists 199 164 3,332 

Congregational and other Independent Methodists... 23 12,500 

Total Non-Episcopal Methodists 2,010 1,485 173,469 

III. Methodists in Canada: 

The Methodist Church of Canada (1878) 1,165 3,537 122,605 

Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada 267 231 27,285 ' 

Primitive Methodist Church 98 262 8,174 

Bible Christian Church 81 197 7,793 

British Methodist Episcopal Church 41 20 2,000 

Total in Canada 1,652 4,247 167,857 

IV. Methodism in Great Britain and Missions : 

Wesleyan Methodist Church 1,679 18,711 502,085 

Primitive Methodist Church 1,128 15,543 182,782 

New Connection Methodist 166 1,156 26,226 

Wesley Reform Union 18 599 7,655 

United Methodist Free Churches 430 3,501 79,987 

Bible Christian Church 284 1,828 30,197 



Total in Great Britain and Missions, 



3,705 



41,338 828,932 



STATISTICS OF METHODISM. 291 



Itinerant Local Lay 
Ministers. Preachers. Members. 

V. Wesleyan Affiliating Conferences: 





208 
24 


1 040 


27 679 
l'905 
66,505 




423 


1,702 




655 


2,742 


96,089 


Recapitulation : 
Methodists in the United States, including Missions- 
Methodists of Wesleyan Affiliating Conferences 


23,194 
1,652 
3,705 
655 


26,642 
4,247 

41,338 
2,742 


3,396,999 
167,857 
828,932 
96,089 




29,206 


74,969 


4,489,877 



Methodist Episcopal Church South, 

This Church was formally organized at a convention held in 
Louisville, Kentucky, beginning May 1, 1845. The first Gen- 
eral Conference was held in Petersburg, Virginia, May 1, 1846. 
Bishops Soule and Andrew, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
went with the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and William 
Capers, D.D., and .Robert Paine, D!D., were elected additional 
bishops. The last General Conference was held in Atlanta, 
Georgia, May 1, 1878. 

Thirteen Conferences severed their connection with the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church in 1845, embracing a total of 1474 trav- 
elling preachers, 2550 local preachers, 330,710 white members, 
124,811 colored members, and 2978 Indian mission members, 
making a grand total of 462,428. 

The Church reports (in 1878) 7 bishops, 37 Annual Conferences, 
and 88 literary institutions, including 2 universities, 51 colleges, 
and 25 seminaries and collegiate institutes. 

Statistics for 1877 : travelling preachers, 3439 ; superannuated 
preachers, 282 ; local preachers, 5684 ; lay members, 765,337 (of 
these 759,216 are white, 1499 colored, and 4622 Indian), total 
ministers and members, 774,742. Sunday-schools, 7947 ; Sunday- 
school teachers, 53,342 ; scholars, 365,163. 

There are 38 Annual Conferences. ISTo official table giving the 
numerical strength of these by Conferences has been issued since 
1875. At that date the numbers in the several Conferences were 
as follows : 



292 



APPENDIX. 



Conferences. 


elling 
ehers. 


nnuated 
chers. 


cal 
chers. 


lite 
ibers. 


reachers 
embers. 


ease. 




Trav 
Pre a* 


g-fi 

GO 


Ph 




Total P 
and M< 


a 

M 




178 


1^ 

lo 


lOo 




25,548 


1 048 




166 


XO 


189 


48,182 


48,765 


1 618 




59 


1 


133 


12,991 


13,208 


944 




161 


10 


294 


38,087 


38,868 


836 




146 


1 Q 

lo 


221 


53,750 


54,551 


4 125 




149 


11 


136 




41,109 


1 446 




170 


21 


425 


53,520 


54,204 


2 521 




109 


18 


221 


29,304 


29,652 


1 805 




51 


8 


07 


8,705 


8,881 


'486 




120 


10 


210 


28,975 


29,379 


1 196 




119 


8 


322 


31,680 


32,145 


318 




72 


8 


75 


13,310 


13,592 


971 




105 


13 


162 


20,754 


21,034 


126 




124 


9 


204 


z7,oZo 


28,165 


407 




116 


9 


276 


31,627 


32,028 


d. 655 




192 


6 


331 


40,766 


41,297 


d 250 




99 


8 


111 


19,306 


19,641 


d 1 019 




119 


7 


214 


29,515 


29,885 


d. 79 




51 


5 


oi 


10,421 


10,573 


807 




69 


4 


112 


13,931 


14,136 


d. 117 




126 


8 


141 


24,854 


25,129 


426 




• 20 


1 




V 


2,359 


2,389 


d. 331 




19 


1 


1 


- 502 


523 


d. 143 




18 


3 


85 


313 


4,859 


d. 335 




53 


3 


162 


10,791 


11,016 


d. 1 154 




68 


2 


108 


12,243 


12,435 


499 


T o Tfrv/^lr 


77 


7 


152 


14,641 


14,877 


d. 995 




83 


8 


219 


18,991 


19,301 


798 




50 


2 


116 


11,223 


11,391 


166 




50 


8 


59 


6,734 


6,851 


d. 255 




105 


6 


233 


17,482 


17,826 


2,156 




47 


5 


62 


5,018 


5,132 


489 




22 




13 


951 


986 


46 




19 


2 


17 


875 


913 


87 




59 


3 


52 


3,728 


3,842 


365 




20 


1 


23 


1,033 


1,077 


58 




52 


2 


81 


5,792 


5,927 


48 

















Contributions and Expenses of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

After examining the official returns for the summaries of the 
various Conference collections, and carefully estimating for other 
items, basing such estimates upon exact reports from a large 
number of churches, and from reports in the local minutes of 
Annual Conferences, the following list is presented as an approxi- 
mation of the amounts contributed by the Methodist Episcopal 
Church for the year 1877. These estimates are under, rather 
than over, the true amounts : 



STATISTICS OF METHODISM. 



293 



Conference collections $918,545 

Miscellaneous collections 203,265 

Expenses for Sunday-schools 645,340 

Expenses for new churches and improvements 981,000 

Expenses for local mission work 215,550 

Expenses for salaries of ministers 11,269,300 

Local church expenses 2,414,850 



Total $16,597,850 



Lay Officers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1878. 



CAEEFULLY ESTIMATED. 

Number of trustees of churches 116,709 

Number of stewards of societies 94,243 

Number of class-leaders 84,439 

Number of Sunday-school superintendents 29,941 

Number of Sunday-school teachers and officers other than su- 
perintendents 187,892 



Growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church by Decades. 

Y Lay Gain during 

lears * Members. Decade. 

1777 6,968 

1787 25,842 18,874 

1797 58,863 33,021 

1807.... 144,590 85,727 

1817 224,853 80,263 

1827 381,997 157,144 

1837 658,574 276,577 

1847 636,471 dec. 22,103 

1857 820,519 184,048 

1867 1,146,081 325,562 

1877 1,671,608 525,527 



The decrease in the decade closing with 1847 was caused by the 
separation and independent organization of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church South. That Church embraced at the time of its 
organization, in 1845, a total of 462,428 members. 



25* 



294 



APPENDIX. 



Growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Lay Membership as 
Compared with Population. 

Instituting a comparison by taking the decades corresponding 
with those of the United States Census reports : 



Years. 

1790. 
1800. 
1810. 
1820. 
1830. 
1840. 
1850. 
1860. 
1870. 



Population. 

3,029,827 
5,305,937 
7,239,814 
9,638,191 
12,866,020 
17,069,453 
23,191,876 
31,443,321 
38,558,371 



Increase. 

1,376,110 
1,933,887 
2,398,377 
3,227,829 
4,203,433 
6,122,423 
8,297,685 
7,115,050 



Gain per ct. 
in Population. 



35.02 
36.45 
33.12 
33.49 
32.67 
35.87 
35.78 
22.62 



Gain per ct. 
in M. E. Ch. 



12.60 
168.96 
48.87 
83.21 
68.38 



44.20 
37.47 



The figures showing the progress of the Church for the decade 
ending with 1850 are omitted, because, as previously noted, 
during that decade nearly half a million of members fell out of 
the count by the separation and organization of the Southern 
Church. It will be seen that the Methodist Episcopal Church 
has led the population in every decade from the beginning except 
one. Taking all the decades except the one in which the South- 
ern separation was effected, the average increase in population for 
each decade was 32.73, while that of the Church lay membership 
has been 66.24, or more than double that of the population. 



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